Obama’s polarization gap

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At his inaugural address a little over one year ago, President Obama appealed to a sense of commonality in the challenges facing Americans.

‘What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility, a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task,’’ Obama said then. ‘This is the price and the promise of citizenship.’’

One year later, the view of the president from street level is more polarized, on average, than that of any president since the Gallup Poll started measuring such things in the 1950s.

For more details, see the Swamp.

-- Mark Silva