Watch America's debilitating political polarization worsen in one depressing gif

Washington can't get much of anything done nowadays, and for that you can blame the widening gap between the two major parties. Sure, there are other factors at play. But the rapid polarization of America's electorate has pushed lawmakers further from the center and, as we've seen with the Tea Party uprising, left those in the ever-shrinking center vulnerable to being picked off in primary campaigns.

To get a feel for just how severe the race to the wings has been in the past two decades, Pew put together this handy gif capturing the incredible shift.

The gif comes from a fascinating report on the nation's rising political extremism that's chock full of other details about how both parties have ditched the center and turned "bipartisanship" into a relic of the past.

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