It will. It rises and falls, like hem lines.
This is a nice summary of partisanship on major policy votes for the last century. Local maximums at the mid teens (tax policy), 1930 (the Great Depression), 1965 (voting rights), the early 80s (Reagan) and then a long, continuous build since the late 80s (the culture wars and the war over continuing Reaganomics).
It's unusual to spend 20 years so divided, but it's not unusual to go through periods of division. And I think we are starting to see the end of the current division, because -- not to put too fine a point on it -- one side is winning. The culture wars are over and the good guys won. Supply side was considered a dead letter on the mainstream even before the Great Recession tossed it onto the ash heap of history. And attempts to rev up new culture wars on the backs of immigrants or trans people are falling flat.
My guess is as long as we can keep moving the ball down the field with this election, the right will come back to the center just as the left had to after all its losses in the 80s. That central dynamic has always kept America from breaking apart or freezing into stasis, and I fully expect it will again. Politics will still be nasty and personal and we will seem hopelessly divided in the local view, because that never changes. But we are probably moving towards a period of relative agreement and shared norms.
And then the Robot Rights Movement will come along in 2040 and we'll be at each other's throats again, but I'll be retired by then so screw you kids -- figure it out.
