• J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photos
  • Would you be happy if your daughter or son ended up with—or like—a man like this? Not if you’re a Democrat. But you might find him funny.

A few decades ago, Americans were a lot more careless about the company they kept. Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, writing for Bloomberg, recalled the other day that back in 1960, just “5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they would feel ‘displeased’ if their son or daughter married outside their political party.”

Reflecting on that shift, author Chris Mooney (The Republican War on Science) wrote a couple of years ago that “the parties are more polarized because they are better sorted psychologically than they used to be. In other words, Republicans are increasingly similar to one another psychologically, and so are Democrats—even as the two groups are also increasingly dissimilar from one another. And therefore, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are not just ideological—they are deeply rooted in personality, values, and psychological needs.”

(There was a postscript: “If you don’t pass this on to your friends, by 11:30 AM tomorrow, you will receive three illegal immigrants absolutely free.”)

The passerby says, “You are mistaken, I am a Mexican.”

The man goes on and encounters another passerby. “Thank you for havingsuch a beautiful country here in America.”

The person says, “I not American, I Vietnamese.”

The new arrival walks farther, and the next person he sees he stops,shakes his hand, and says, “Thank you for wonderful America!”

That person puts up his hand and says, “I am from Middle East. I amnot American.”

He finally sees a woman and asks, “Are you an American?”

She says, “No, I am from Africa.”

Puzzled, he asks her, “Where are all the Americans?”

The African woman checks her watch and says, “Probably at work.”

In 2011 someone posted a British version (again introduced as “best joke of the year”). Again, the effusive foreigner was a Somali, who wandered around London looking for someone to thank for the free ride. He met a Mexican, a Pole, and a Russian; eventually an African lady gave him the what’s-what on where the actual Brits were. She “checks her watch and says . . . ‘Probably wapo kwa kazi mida hii (Probably at work).’”