in the era when Washington was least polarized, political consensus rested on a foundation of racial bigotry that most would find abhorrent today. The compromises Congress made to preserve the peace included voting down anti-lynching laws and agreeing to lock most African Americans out of Social Security. I would call that political system far more ideologically extreme than the one we have today, even as it was less polarized. Political scientists agree that the mid-twentieth century was the low ebb of political polarization, particularly in Congress. But the mid-twentieth century was not an
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