An eye-opening look at how and why America has become so politically polarized Many continue to believe that the United States is a nation of political moderates. In fact, it is a nation divided. It has been so for some time and has grown more so. This book provides a new and historically grounded perspective on the polarization of America, systematically documenting how and why it happened. Polarized presents commonsense benchmarks to measure polarization, draws data from a wide range of historical sources, and carefully assesses the quality of the evidence. Through an innovative and insightful use of circumstantial evidence, it provides a much-needed reality check to claims about polarization. This rigorous yet engaging and accessible book examines how polarization displaced pluralism and how this affected American democracy and civil society. Polarized challenges the widely held belief that polarization is the product of party and media elites, revealing instead how the American public in the 1960s set in motion the increase of polarization. American politics became highly polarized from the bottom up, not the top down, and this began much earlier than often thought. The Democrats and the Republicans are now ideologically distant from each other and about equally distant from the political center. Polarized also explains why the parties are polarized at all, despite their battle for the decisive median voter. No subject is more central to understanding American politics than political polarization, and no other book offers a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the subject than this one.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’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 20th 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. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

“A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.

The key to understanding the current wave of American political division is the attention people pay to politics.

The fascinating true story of the characters in Hulu's "Mrs. America" and a broader portrait of the two women's movements that spurred an enduring rift between liberals and conservatives. "The many admirers of 'Mrs. America' . . . will find great satisfaction in [Divided We Stand] . . . a clear, compelling and deeply insightful volume." —The Washington Post One of Smithsonian Magazine’s Ten Best History Books of the Year In the early 1970s, an ascendant women’s rights movement enjoyed strong support from both political parties and considerable success, but was soon challenged by a conservative women’s movement formed in opposition. Tensions between the two would explode in 1977 at the congressionally funded National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas. As Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and other feminists endorsed hot-button issues such as abortion rights, the ERA, and gay rights, Phyllis Schlafly and Lottie Beth Hobbs rallied with conservative women to protest federally funded feminism and launch a pro-family movement. Divided We Stand reveals how crucial women and women’s issues have been in the shaping of today’s political culture. After the National Women’s Conference, Democrats continued to back women’s rights in cooperation with a more diverse feminist movement while the GOP abandoned its previous support for women’s rights and defined itself as the party of family values, irrevocably affecting the course of American politics.

It goes without saying that tension and division run deep in the present American political landscape. As much as one desperately yearns for bipartisanship and solidarity in the face of immense challenges threatening the United States both domestically and globally, both sides are almost disconnected to one another, ingrained with resentment against those with contrasting ideologies, and adamant to the idea of cooperation.This state of polarization and divide is, of course, counterproductive and detrimental to the country, as anyone can figure. It has dominated the country's ambience for years, and it is unfortunately likely to become more extreme in the approaching time. Many are understandably exasperated and dismayed at the outlook of this, and they rightly call for an end to it. However, no chatter, encouragement for change or expression of disapproval has ever translated into meaningful action thus far. Politicians, pundits, and influencers of all stripes have been condemning disharmony and partisan gridlock in Washington for decades, yet these problems persist. This begs a query as to whether we truly comprehend them and their roots. Throughout this riveting account, the United States' political history is intensively investigated as we delve together into every aspect there is to grasp about what has led to the current polarization and divide, and laid out as succinctly as possible. When all the pages are turned, hopefully something meaningful will be noted and play a contributive role towards the goal of healing this polarization and bridging this divide.

It goes without saying that tension and division run deep in the present American political landscape. As much as one desperately yearns for bipartisanship and solidarity in the face of immense challenges threatening the United States both domestically and globally, both sides are almost disconnected from one another, ingrained with resentment against those with contrasting ideologies, and adamant to the idea of cooperation.This state of polarization and divide is, of course, counterproductive and detrimental to the country, as anyone can figure. It has dominated the country's ambience for years, and it is unfortunately likely to become more extreme in the approaching time. Many are understandably exasperated and dismayed at the outlook of this, and they rightly call for an end to it. However, no chatter, encouragement for change or expression of disapproval has ever translated into meaningful action thus far. Politicians, pundits, and influencers of all stripes have been condemning disharmony and partisan gridlock in Washington for decades, yet these problems persist. This begs a query as to whether we truly comprehend them and their roots. Throughout this riveting account, the United States' political history is intensively investigated as we delve together into every aspect there is to grasp about what has led to the current polarization and divide, and laid out as succinctly as possible. When all the pages are turned, hopefully something meaningful will be noted and play a contributive role towards the goal of healing this polarization and bridging this divide.