WASHINGTON — They came blowing whistles. They came carrying signs. They came dressed as handmaids. They came holding military-style rifles.

They were Americans protesting over the past week, and the events that attracted them — the Women’s March on Saturday, a pro-gun rally in Virginia on Monday and Friday’s anti-abortion march in Washington — provided a frenetic backdrop to the more subdued but equally contentious impeachment proceedings unfolding in the Senate. In a resonant flourish, President Trump spoke to the anti-abortion marchers as senators pondered his fate a few blocks away.

It is a strange political moment, and one that raises the question: What do American partisans think of one another? It is true that most Americans don’t follow politics much. But what is happening among the four in 10 who do? How worried should we really be about polarization in the United States?

In almost 50 interviews at all three rallies with activists on the left and right, many people said they still found some common cause with the other side. The subjects of their ire were politicians, not regular people. But many others said they disliked and even feared the other side. Democrats described Republicans with words like “invasive species” and “missing brain cells.” Young Democratic women said they would not consider dating Republican men. (“It’s not a good look,” one said.) Republicans described Democrats as “dangerous,” and “brainwashed” and acting in a way that “defied common sense.” Impeachment, said one 85-year-old Republican, amounted to “bovine defecation.”