The ossification of American Politics in One Chart:

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

This is the median state trend by year.
http://imgur.com/gallery/V5UvFSV. I was arguing with someone whether 2016 was a realigning election. I looked at median trends by year, and at first that seemed to have some truth to it. Then I got to pre-1988. Every election but one since 1896 has had a greater than 5% trend. Until 1992, where none have. The downward trend is unmistakable and alarming.

[Technocracy Timmy]

What? I need more context to understand what you're saying.

But the 2016 map doesn't look significantly different than 2000-2012. Trump did win WI, MI, and PA but Bush nearly won WI in 2000 and PA did come within 5.4 points in 2012. Michigan was the only shocker.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

What? I need more context to understand what you're saying.

But the 2016 map doesn't look significantly different than 2000-2012. Trump did win WI, MI, and PA but Bush nearly won WI in 2000 and PA did come within 5.4 points in 2012. Michigan was the only shocker.

I took the atlas trend map and sorted by size of trend. I picked the states or states with the median trend, and listed that for every year since 1896. As you can see from the graph, trend size has been dropping, the US has been becoming less elastic.