(CNN) -- It's not your imagination: Our politics are more polarized than at any point in recent history. That's the conclusion of a new survey from the indispensable Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. And if you needed more evidence of the passionate and sometimes poisonous polarization afflicting our nation, you didn't have to look further than the crowds in Wisconsin on Tuesday night after the recall attempt. Here's the real wake-up call: Americans are more divided about partisan politics right now than they are about race, class, gender and age. That's right: Forget the original sin of slavery and the longstanding fights over civil rights -- those old divisions now seem small compared with perceptions of whether a person is a Republican or Democrat.
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John Avlon: Pew study confirms politics divides Americans more than race, class, age, gender
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He says it's bigotry, a learned behavior profoundly alienating Americans from each other
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He says GOP support of social safety net, environment way down, Democrats about same
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Avlon: Split undermines core belief of e pluribus unum
As in surveys past, we can see that independent voters tend to be closer on economic issues to @placeholder and closer to Democrats on social issues.