“This is certainly the worst political climate that I’ve seen in my lifetime, but on some level the violence and hatred have always been around,” said Peniel Joseph, the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a professor of history at the University of Texas.

While there is agreement that race relations are deteriorating, the common ground ends there, according to follow-up interviews with those who took part in the survey. There is no gathering consensus on how to solve the issue or who is to blame.

The Post-ABC poll finds 63 percent saying race relations are in bad shape, up from 48 percent in a Pew Research survey this spring.