AS MILLIONS of Americans travelled home for Thanksgiving this week advice columns were filled with the perennial—but increasingly fraught—question of what to talk about at the dinner table. (“When your liberal aunt shows up at Thanksgiving in Trump country” ran one headline in the Washington Post.) In recent years generational and partisan attitudes towards a range of political issues have diverged, with political-party stalwarts holding increasingly negative views of the followers of the party they oppose. Yet at the same time, there is some hope to be drawn from growing agreement on a range of social issues.

Polls suggest that on a number of measures the partisan divide is wider than ever. Surveys by Pew Research Center, for example, report that in 1994 there was a 20-point disparity in the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who thought government should do more to help the needy; by 2017 that had increased to 47 percentage points. That reflects divergence in views about the fairness of the economic system—with the gap on opinions like “people can get ahead if they work hard” and “the economy in this country favours powerful interests”—also growing.

Pew’s analysis suggests that more people are consistently liberal or conservative in their outlook across issues, part of a trend towards greater partisan purity. Duane F. Alwin and Paula A. Tufis, sociologists, examined the General Social Survey to report a growing national alignment between views across a liberal-conservative spectrum and party identification. They also found that the percentage of people who describe themselves as moderate, slightly liberal or slightly conservative (as opposed to simply or “extremely” liberal or conservative) fell from 71% in 1974 to 62% in 2010, and that party supporters’ antipathy towards the other party had grown significantly since the 1960s. In 2016, 70% of Democrats felt that Republicans were close-minded and 52% of Republicans felt the same about Democrats.

This growing partisan rancour may be one reason people seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with the state of the country. Median household income climbed almost $6,000 between 2012 and 2016 to its highest ever level while the unemployment rate, at 4.1%, is at its lowest since 2001. But at just over one fifth, the proportion of voters reporting to Gallup that they are satisfied with the way things are going in America is only marginally up from a nadir of 7% in 2008, and still 50 percentage points lower than the three-decade high of 71% reached in February 1999.

And yet, partisan antipathy has its limits. Research by Jonathan Mummolo and Clayton Nall from Stanford University suggests there is no evidence to support the idea that Democrats and Republicans are moving to communities filled with those who share their politics, despite a widespread stated preference to do precisely that. Other factors still trump partisanship in choosing where to live: crime levels, school quality, and commuting time. And there are still issues on which both sides can agree. The majority of supporters of both parties believe that the average global temperature is rising, that America’s involvement in the global economy is a good thing, and that the cost of health care is too high. More than two thirds of supporters of both parties still back the right to protest, free speech, the constitutional system of checks and balances and the importance of free and fair elections.

For all that Republicans and Democrats may increasingly dislike each other, meanwhile, the partisan divide over attitudes towards other social groupings is shrinking. Only 3% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans believe that increasing number of people from different races, ethnic groups and nationalities in America makes the country a worse place to live. The proportion of Republican supporters who see immigrants as a burden on the country has fallen from 64% in 1994 to 44% today, which means that a majority in both parties now have positive views towards migrants. Democrats profess greater tolerance of sexual minorities, but the percentage of Republicans who think homosexuality should be accepted, at 54%, now matches the percentage of Democrats who favoured tolerance in 1994. According to analysis of the General Social Survey by Landon Schnabel and Eric Sevell of Indiana University, Republicans are also moving towards acceptance of gay marriage at similar rates to Democrats, if from a lower base level of support.

On the importance of racism in determining outcomes for African Americans, partisan disagreement remains. Yet most supporters of the Republican Party back affirmative action (along with 84% of Democrats). Because of shifting attitudes that have spread across partisan divides, Gallup surveys also report that 87% of people backed inter-racial marriage by 2013; more recent statistics show 73% of Americans back divorce and 69% find unmarried sex morally acceptable. That suggests that whatever the marital history, colour, nationality or gender of the partner that Americans turn at up at home with for Thanksgiving, they are more likely to be welcomed with open arms than in the past.

There also seems to be an improvement in the way that Americans think their own lives are going. Some 86% of Republicans believe they are on the way to achieving the “American Dream” or have achieved it, along with 80% of Democrats. In 2017 the proportion of Americans who reported they were satisfied with the way their life was going reached 87%, up from 78% in 2011 and only one percentage point below the highest number reported since the poll question was first asked by Gallup in 1979. It seems that many dinner tables divided by party politics will still be united by the idea that there is much to give thanks for—even if everyone agrees that America has a lot to worry about.