By Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Center

Special to CNN

Michigan Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s famous axiom that partisan politics stops at the water’s edge has always been more an expression of hope than a description of reality. Since he uttered his famous dictum in the 1940s, Americans have disagreed along ideological lines about a range of international issues: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, trade with Japan, the Iraq War, relations with China and climate change. With national debates looming next year over Iran, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, trade and China, continued partisan discord is probably unavoidable. What may be different this time is the shear depth of that partisan divide.

Americans differ in their judgment of the trajectory of the United States on the world stage.

Read more at CNN’s Global Public Square blog