Why We're Polarized

「なぜ、アメリカ政治は2分化しているのか？」という問いに上手く答えられていたと思います。 2分化を進んで受け入れようとした民主党と共和党の意図から始まり、経済格差や人種割合の複雑化、2大政党制や小選挙区制、「中立」とは言えないマスコミや研究者からの主張などがアメリカ政治の2分化・分断を進めていると改めて思いました。 しかし、解決策として「比例代表制を導入すべき」という主張には納得しがたいでした。たしかに、各選挙区で様々な利益を代弁する者を当選すれば、妥協が生まれる可能性はあるでしょう。(アメリカ建国の父の一人マディソンは同じ理由で間接民主制受け入れを主張した)。しかし、様々な利益を代弁するもの同士の対立も現れるのではないでしょうか？「2分化」に代わり、「分断」が新たな問題になるでしょう。また、比例代表制では政権樹立が遅れると言うリスクもあります。 とはいえ、「アメリカ政治の2分化の原因を知りたい」という方は全編英語であれ読む価値はあるでしょう

Geniales Buch. Erklärt was in US wirklich das Problem ist

I usually don't write reviews but after seeing all the intense opinions, positive and negative, about the premise and conclusion of the book I felt like putting in my two cents. Personally, I don't think the rating of a book should be based on whether you agree or disagree with the author but should be based on whether the book was thought provoking, knowledge expanding, and written in good faith. I believe Ezra Klein's book was all of those things, as well as a useful look at his model of our current political polarization and the research he did to come up with that model. And the intense opinions, positive and negative, about the book confirm, at the very least, that we are extremely polarized. I've read and listened to Ezra Klein's work at Vox on and off for the last couple years. I thoroughly enjoy his podcast, even when I disagree with something in the conversation. The value of this book, similarly to Ezra's other work, is that it is not meant to take a hard opinion on a contentious issue. Or to attempt to persuade the unpersuadable. He's always looking to learn about an issue from multiple vantage points and opinions, that are credible and made in good faith, in an effort to UNDERSTAND why things are the way they are. Nothing more, nothing less. And this book does exactly what he intended to do, laying out years of research on our political climate and putting forward his best explanation of how we got here. I've seen claims that he has a positive view of polarization and I don't see how they came to that conclusion. He believes, broadly speaking, that the polarization we see in politics and the subsequent actions taken by politicians and public figures actually make sense given their incentives in a polarized system. And he expects that this polarization and its consequences will continue in the near future. That is not a positive view of polarization in. It is just what Klein believes are the forces at play that cause extremely polarizing decisions to be made by political actors on both sides. For example, Klein would argue that the decision by Mitch McConnell to refuse a confirmation hearing of President Obama's Supreme Court nomination following Justice Scalia's is best explained by Senator McConnell acting on the incentive he had to make a Supreme Court nominee an added outcome of the presidential and congressional elections later that year. This is a much more believable explanation than the believe that the Senator is an evil person. But if you disagree with that explanation and analysis that's ok. It's at least another way to look at why actions are taken by those power. So, I think this is definitely worth the read. Knowing his work and how he came up with the ideas in the book(reading an immense amount of literature on the topic and digging deep into with the author's themselves on his podcast) I know he's not trying to be persuasive about anything. Rather, he's simply trying to help anyone else that wants to know how we got here and why by laying out what he's come up with. And he does a great job of that.

The details of the events talked about in the book really help the overall experience.

A true eye-opener. I would recommend this to people across the political spectrum if they want to understand why there’s so much division today.