The polls aren’t even closed and the liberal press is in full swing, hammering away at the idea that “we are just too politically polarized.” This is an effort to pave the way for the “conservatives aren’t working with Obama and the Democrats “stories that will follow in early 2011.

Via Miller McCune:

In the United States, the past quarter-century has been marked by two disturbing societal trends: increasing levels of both income inequality and political polarization. The rich are growing richer, and Democrats and Republicans are growing farther apart.

In 2006, a group of researchers led by Nolan McCarty, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton, presented evidence linking these two phenomena. They reported that “the average positions of Democratic and Republican legislators have diverged markedly since the mid-1970s,” adding that “this turning point occurs almost exactly the same time that income inequality begins to grow after a long decline.”

So are we evolving into a nation of haves and have-nots, with one political party representing the interests of each? Research just published in The Journal of Politics, which examines voting records of the U.S. Senate, provides state-level evidence suggesting this dynamic is well under way.

“U.S. senators from states with high levels of income inequality are more polarized than other senators,” writes Louisiana State University political scientist James Garand, “primarily in response to state income inequality and greater constituency polarization that results from high income inequality.”

So, according to the above study, if we would just ‘spread the wealth’ it would be good for everyone… And the partisan arguments would quiet down.

And then there is this ‘scientific’ look at the phenomenon from Live-Science titled Rising Rancor (cute, isn’t it):

Researchers agree that the public’s political views are less polarized than those of elected officials. Still, the gaps between liberals and conservatives can run deep. That’s because political ideology is rooted in morality, Haidt said, and conservatives and liberals have very different understandings of what “moral” is.

So, it’s really just the politicians that are being disagreeable because the public isn’t that polarized.

I don’t buy it, but researchers agree. You know, just like global warming there is consensus.

Across cultures, there seem to be five foundations of morality, Haidt said. Liberals care about the first two, harm and fairness. Conservatives care about harm and fairness too, but they also worry about the other three foundations: in-group loyalty, respect for authority and purity or sanctity, which ties into religious views. (Haidt’s study website, yourmorals.org, allows you to test where you fall on the spectrum.)

People’s moral foundations are partially influenced by heritable traits, like a tendency toward disgust (which has been associated with conservatism) or empathy (reflected in the “liberal bleeding heart” stereotype). A study published this month in the Journal of Politics finds that a gene related to a love for novelty may be associated with a liberal outlook. People with the gene who had many friends as teenagers were more likely to be liberal as adults, revealing a gene-environment interaction, the researchers reported.

Conservatives are wallowing around in disgust and, surprise! Liberals are fun people.

Of course all the partisanship stems from group think and not from genuine political difference and beliefs:

Once someone’s emotions predispose them toward a political philosophy, they tend to pay more attention to information that reinforces their position, said Peter Ditto, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who has collaborated with Haidt. Ignoring contradictory information is easier than ever, given the proliferation of partisan news sources and blogs.

This fundamental gap is why liberals and conservatives often hit a wall while arguing issues with one another, Ditto said.