Why We're Polarized

Why We're Polarized

The New York Times Bestseller

The Wall Street Journal Bestseller

â€œFew books are as well-matched to the moment of their publication as Ezra Kleinâ€™s Why Weâ€™re Polarized.â€ â€”Dan Hopkins, The Washington Post

â€œIt is likely to become the political book of the year....Powerful [and] intelligent.â€ â€”Fareed Zakaria, CNN

â€œSuperbly researched and written..." â€”Francis Fukuyama, The Washington Post

Americaâ€™s political system isnâ€™t broken. The truth is scarier: itâ€™s working exactly as designed. In this book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing usâ€”and how we are polarizing itâ€”with disastrous results.

â€œThe American political systemâ€”which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the presidentâ€”is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,â€ writes political analyst Ezra Klein. â€œWe are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.â€

In Why Weâ€™re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind Americaâ€™s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trumpâ€™s rise to the Democratic Partyâ€™s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture.

America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together.

Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the twentieth century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis.

This is a revelatory book that will change how you look at politics, and perhaps at yourself.

Country	USA
Brand	Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	147670032X-localization
ReleaseDate	2020-01-28
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9781476700328

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