With the hotly contested Iowa primaries only a week away, the level of political polarization is higher than it’s been in decades. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are veering sharply to the populist left as they each champion a brand of democratic socialism. On the Republican side, the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz reveals the rise of a muscular conservatism that appeals to the far right. By November, this political divide will become more pronounced. No one will be able to say, to quote George Wallace’s oft-repeated remark, that there is not a “dime’s worth of difference” between the two parties.
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