From Vox: The single most important fact about American politics

I can't recommend this highly enough. It'll be a part of my look at political participation and political parties for some time. It tries to get to the root of party polarization in the US. These are observations based on a recent study by the Pew Research Center - click here for the study.

- Click here for the article.

Perhaps the single most important fact about American politics is this: the people who participate are more ideological and more partisan, as well as angrier and more fearful, than those who don't.

Here is one of the factors the author sees as especially problematic. It's not just that the parties are divided ideologically, they hate and fear each other: