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Why We're Polarized

Written by: Ezra Klein
Narrated by: Ezra Klein
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About this listen

 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. Americas Ideologies & Doctrines Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences United States Liberalism Socialism Social justice

What the critics say

"Ezra Klein, a political junkie who cofounded the website Vox, narrates his audiobook precisely, purposefully, and passionately. Often a guest on TV news programs, he has a delivery style that is direct and approachable. He conveys the urgency of his arguments with a kind of polite candor and frequently notes how ironic our politics have become, with many voters choosing partisanship over self-interest. Most telling, he takes on the unfairness built into a system in which his home state of California, with almost 40 million residents, has the same number of senators as Wyoming, with not quite 600,000. Klein is especially good at explaining how we got to our present situation, calling the Trump phenomenon 'predictable.' Listeners who want a nuanced and provocative discussion of our politically divided nation will find fertile turf here."
All stars
Most Relevant
If you are a listener to the Ezra Klein podcast, the content and performance will be very familiar. Not redundant, but pleasantly consolidated. To those less familiar with Klein, it teases out the specifics of why politics seem so negatively emotional and frustrating. Almost exclusively focused on American politics, western readers are likely to see analogues in their own country or at least I did.

interesting Ideas About Where We Are

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Ezra Klein is thoughtful, insightful & fair. He absolutely meets the objective - to provide a framework to think abt the nature of entrenched polarization & to imagibe a gov that was fair & more representative
Too bad most prob have zero hope it will ever happen b/c self interest always rules

Outstanding

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statement of the problem and discussion of possible solutions

HOWEVER, like every discussion on this severe problem, does not mention the single most important component: Americans' hatred of each other and their views and as promoted and weaponized by the media.

thorough discussion of the most important issue

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With the worst of Trump's era over, I needed this book to show me me how that was possible. This book answered my questions with needed wisdom like how this era of deep divide is in some important ways better than the semi-concensus of the past that required a greater injustice to maintain.

A masterfully insightful analysis of US politics.

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Too much social science data citations, and too little cultural observations. Klein’s book overlooks the cultural Grand Canyon that divides those on the Left and those on the Right, plus the growing tendency of both sides to demonize the other. Klein’s book is a work of an excellent technocrat, but inaccessible to those wishing to understand the divide.

Occasionally interesting, but ultimately lacking

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