Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

Why we're polarized / Ezra Klein.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Avid Reader Press, 2020Edition: First Avid Reader Press hardcover editionDescription: xxiii, 312 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781476700328
  • 147670032X
Other title:
  • Why we are polarized
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction: What didn't happen -- How Democrats became liberals and Republicans became conservatives -- The Dixiecrat dilemma -- Your brain on groups -- The press secretary in your mind -- Demographic threat -- Interlude -- The media divide beyond left-right -- Post-persuasion elections -- When bipartisanship becomes irrational -- The difference between Democrats and Republicans -- Managing polarization-- and ourselves.
Summary: ""America's political system isn't broken. The truth is scarier: it's working exactly as designed. In this 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." In Why We're Polarized, Klein 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 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."-- Provided by publisher.Summary: America's political system isn't broken: it's working exactly as designed. But Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us-- and how we are polarizing it-- with disastrous results. In examining the structural and psychological forces behind America's descent into division and dysfunction, he shows that everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Now our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. -- adapted from jacket
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 306.2097 K64 Available 33111009581360
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-296) and index.

Introduction: What didn't happen -- How Democrats became liberals and Republicans became conservatives -- The Dixiecrat dilemma -- Your brain on groups -- The press secretary in your mind -- Demographic threat -- Interlude -- The media divide beyond left-right -- Post-persuasion elections -- When bipartisanship becomes irrational -- The difference between Democrats and Republicans -- Managing polarization-- and ourselves.

""America's political system isn't broken. The truth is scarier: it's working exactly as designed. In this 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." In Why We're Polarized, Klein 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 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."-- Provided by publisher.

America's political system isn't broken: it's working exactly as designed. But Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us-- and how we are polarizing it-- with disastrous results. In examining the structural and psychological forces behind America's descent into division and dysfunction, he shows that everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Now our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. -- adapted from jacket

Powered by Koha