The “middle ground” or the overlap of agreement between conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans is shrinking (Hare, Poole 2014). To make matters worse, dislike, distrust, and even contempt and hatred have grown viciously between members of the parties.
Because of this, collaboration and cooperation have been steadily decreasing. Cooperation in Congress, represented by connections between the dots in the image, has diminished dramatically between parties over time (Andris et. al. 2015).
