2 political scientists have found the secret to partisanship, and it’s deeply depressing

Updated by Ezra Klein on October 27, 2015, 7:44 a.m. ET

Politics isn't about who you love. It's about who you fear.

That's the upshot of a paper by political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster that attempts to untangle a mystery about modern American politics: how can there be record levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting at the same time that fewer Americans than ever before are identifying as Republicans and Democrats?