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A review by branch_c
Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
4.0
More than most books, this one actually lives up to its title: Klein does a masterful job explaining exactly why the US is polarized. The answer is complicated, but at the same time fairly straightforward: the system is working largely as designed, where parties are shortcuts for voters to use instead of having to know everything about the candidates when voting. And there really is value to this! But this leads voters to start treating parties as part of their identity, which parties go along with. And it explains why the battle moves to the primaries - by the general election, very few voters are persuadable. Which in turn encourages parties to cater to their “base” - their most extreme members.
The result is a minority party whose incentive is not to compromise and work with the majority - it’s to use tricks and antagonism to become the majority next time around. In other words, “Bipartisan cooperation is often necessary for governance but irrational for the minority party to offer.” (p. 218)
With books like this one, there’s an expectation that after describing the problem, the author propose solutions at the end. Klein attempts to head this off with a caveat that “I have more confidence in my diagnosis than my prescription.” (p. 250) But in fact, the conclusion is surprisingly satisfying, because as stated in the afterword, “polarization isn’t the problem, it’s the interaction between polarization and our political institutions that’s the problem.” (p. 274) So Klein has a list of solid suggestions to address our situation by improving our political institutions so they’re more compatible with the polarization that’s possibly unavoidable and maybe even desirable. His recommendations (spoiler?):
- Eliminate the debt ceiling (artificial and needlessly destabilizing).
- Eliminate the electoral college (thoroughly undemocratic).
- Eliminate the filibuster (most ridiculous “rule” ever, introduced by accident (!) as a side effect of a recommendation by Aaron Burr in 1805 (p. 220)).
- Give congressional representation to DC and Puerto Rico.
- Make voting easier, including automatic voter registration and expanding voting by mail.
- Rebuilding the Supreme Court, with an interesting proposal by Epps and Sitaraman to have 15 justices and equal partisan representation (p. 260).
I agree with all of this, and given the intelligence and authority with which this book is written, I expect that others would too. Yes, these are largely liberal/Democratic positions, but there’s no reason why Republicans couldn’t embrace them too and engineer a turnaround for conservatism - the alternative is to continue down their current path into full-blown anti-democracy.
As an aside, I’ll note that I’m not an unvarnished fan of Klein: in particular, he betrayed a surprising lack of intellectual integrity during his clash with Sam Harris some years ago over Charles Murray, issues of race science, and the platforming of unpopular opinions. I found Harris to be more correct in his position, and logically he and Klein should be on the same side. In this book, Klein unfairly lumps Harris into the “intellectual dark web” (p. 123), a loose group of contrarians that Harris currently has little in common with, even though he did (half-jokingly) originate the term.
Anyway, overall this is a fascinating and well-written book; Democrats will like it better, but I honestly recommend it for readers of any partisan stripe.
The result is a minority party whose incentive is not to compromise and work with the majority - it’s to use tricks and antagonism to become the majority next time around. In other words, “Bipartisan cooperation is often necessary for governance but irrational for the minority party to offer.” (p. 218)
With books like this one, there’s an expectation that after describing the problem, the author propose solutions at the end. Klein attempts to head this off with a caveat that “I have more confidence in my diagnosis than my prescription.” (p. 250) But in fact, the conclusion is surprisingly satisfying, because as stated in the afterword, “polarization isn’t the problem, it’s the interaction between polarization and our political institutions that’s the problem.” (p. 274) So Klein has a list of solid suggestions to address our situation by improving our political institutions so they’re more compatible with the polarization that’s possibly unavoidable and maybe even desirable. His recommendations (spoiler?):
- Eliminate the debt ceiling (artificial and needlessly destabilizing).
- Eliminate the electoral college (thoroughly undemocratic).
- Eliminate the filibuster (most ridiculous “rule” ever, introduced by accident (!) as a side effect of a recommendation by Aaron Burr in 1805 (p. 220)).
- Give congressional representation to DC and Puerto Rico.
- Make voting easier, including automatic voter registration and expanding voting by mail.
- Rebuilding the Supreme Court, with an interesting proposal by Epps and Sitaraman to have 15 justices and equal partisan representation (p. 260).
I agree with all of this, and given the intelligence and authority with which this book is written, I expect that others would too. Yes, these are largely liberal/Democratic positions, but there’s no reason why Republicans couldn’t embrace them too and engineer a turnaround for conservatism - the alternative is to continue down their current path into full-blown anti-democracy.
As an aside, I’ll note that I’m not an unvarnished fan of Klein: in particular, he betrayed a surprising lack of intellectual integrity during his clash with Sam Harris some years ago over Charles Murray, issues of race science, and the platforming of unpopular opinions. I found Harris to be more correct in his position, and logically he and Klein should be on the same side. In this book, Klein unfairly lumps Harris into the “intellectual dark web” (p. 123), a loose group of contrarians that Harris currently has little in common with, even though he did (half-jokingly) originate the term.
Anyway, overall this is a fascinating and well-written book; Democrats will like it better, but I honestly recommend it for readers of any partisan stripe.