This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
We typically divide the United States into two political categories.
Conservative Democrats have blocked us at every turn, and liberal.
Frankly, I don't care what the Republicans say.
Finding common ground between these two groups reaching across the aisle.
Their far left radical base has become increasingly rare because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.
This is true, not just in a metaphorical sense.
In one study, researchers looked at more than 1400 hours of tape.
Now live Senate coverage on C SPAN.
On C SPAN two, the Senate will.
Come to order the chat hour after hour of hearings, roads and bridges and airports committee markup sessions.
Congress is a very important pillar.
Testimony Keystone XL TransCanada resolutions.
The clerk will call the roll.
After all these hours watching C SPAN, researchers concluded that since the 1990s, Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate have physically crossed the aisle less and less to interact with opposing colleagues.
That means senators are staying with their like minded colleagues, not just in the legislation they are trying to pass, but also by literally steering clear of the carpeted pathway that splits the Senate floor in half.
In other words, just like the rest of the nation, the Senate is more divided than ever, and this divide can leave us feeling helpless and hopeless.
Today, though, we're going to take a few steps back.
We are going to look at the challenge of political division through a new lens.