This just in: American politics is more rough-and-tumble this year than it’s ever been before.

Not so shocking, right? For months it’s been on your television, in your newspaper and all over the Internet. An election full of scandals, name calling and threats has brought with it less respect among voters for public niceties between candidates seeking elected office.

Two of the most marked drops came regarding race and ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Only 69 percent of voters said commenting on another person’s race or ethnicity in a political engagement should be out-of-bounds. In 2010, when Allegheny College asked this poll question, 89 percent said it should be.

Similarly, the poll found that fewer voters these days — 65 percent — think commenting on someone’s sexual orientation is unacceptable, down from 81 percent in 2010.

In releasing the poll, Allegheny and Zogby, the firm which conducted it, seemed to draw a causal relationship between the election cycle and voters’ positions on civility.

“The uncivil behavior appears to be numbing the electorate,” the organizations said in a news release Monday announcing the poll’s results.

That may be true. But it’s worth considering whether this is a chicken-and-egg scenario. Are voters’ attitudes a reflection of the politics that are presented to them, or are they getting the politics they’ve been asking for?

Six years ago when Allegheny asked voters if elected officials should pursue friendships with members of the other party, 85 percent said they should. Today that number is only 56 percent.

Allegheny’s president, James H. Mullen Jr., called the results “stunning and deeply disturbing for everyone who believes civil discourse is essential to the long-term health of our democracy.”

That’s a dire pronouncement. But those who brush this off as simply fodder for holier-than-thou condemnations of contemporary politics are missing the point.

Without real, intelligent conversations about the issues our society faces we can’t hope to grow past them. The point of these arguments isn’t to bludgeon alternative positions into agreement. It’s to learn, understand, and change. The job isn’t telling everyone how to think. It’s getting people thinking — and talking — about the issues that divide us, and finding a solution that can unite us.

That won’t happen without trust, respect and engagement. And voters seemingly don’t want their elected officials talking and building relationships with each other outside the echo chamber of Washington. Not only that — they’re doing less talking among themselves, too.

The survey asked voters if they had tried to persuade anyone on a political issue over the past year. Just 33 percent said they had, down from 52 percent in 2010.

Perhaps that’s the truly chilling takeaway from this survey. Not that we’re saying more nasty things to and about each other during political campaigns. But that those “everyday Americans” politicians love to talk about aren’t even talking to each other much at all anymore.