Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (Great Questions in Politics Series) (2nd Edition)

This is a great book, but I'm not sure that I feel comfortable fully embracing Fiorina's thesis. Fiorina argues that the electorate is not polarized, but we perceive it to be for various reasons (Polarized politicians, political activists, most voters are moderate with few extremists in the electorate, the media blows it all out of proportion, ect.). While Fiorina makes a compelling case and provides exhaustive evidence to support his claims, as much as I want to embrace his argument, my experience begs to differ. Perhaps I tend to be around extremists from both sides of the political spectrum and my experience is different than others, but as far as I can tell my peers are just as polarized as the political community. I've never lived in blood red America, but I've met enough die hard conservatives to know that lots are out there. I've also spent the majority of my life in some of the most liberal populations in the country, so I know there's a pretty strong coalition on the other side. Fiorina states that we are "closely but not deeply divided" meaning the median voter is the most common voter. That being said, I think most moderate voters just don't care and the ones who are really active politicians tend to be extremists. That being said, I think this book is important for the entire electorate or not. Because whether America is polarized or not, I think this book will challenge readers to consider how healthy deep partisanship really is as well as to be more pragmatic in our own political views and discussions. The polarization of America (or the illusion of it as Fiorina argues) is the result of a political system in desperate need of reform, and I think this book may help us to better understand the division of the electorate and encourage us all to work together, become more involved, more informed, and consume media with more scrutiny. While my experience encourages me to reject the thesis of Fiorina's Culture War, I think it's an interesting, provocative read important for all registered voters to read.

Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (Great Questions in Politics Series) (2nd Edition) (Great Questions in Politics) Some say that the United States has become extremely polarized while others say that the electorate is more "centrist" in nature. Who is correct? Fiorina does an excellent job of creating convincing evidence that both contentions are correct. Partisans are divided by a deep chasm of conservatism and liberalism yet those who wear the Independent label are more moderate just left and right of center. The author covers possible reasons for this divide and succinctly offers a glimpse into the future of the American electorate. This is a great book to add as an additional textbook for an undergraduate or graduate level course or just as a book for a "political junkies" who wants to learn more about United States politics.

I have had the opportunity to live in Boston then Dallas over the last 15+ years. Politically it's like living in two seperate countries.

I am liberal and can tell you for a fact that here in Dallas, I feel like I am living on another planet. I know a large number of people who actually believe a man built a big wooden boat (without the aid of Black and Decker) and put two of EVERY animal on it. They believe this without hesitation, even when I tell them there are over 30 million species. So that would be about 60 million animals and a darn big boat. Once you are willing to believe that facts no longer matter. SO I would contend we have one country that is fact based and the other that is faith based. For example, if you cut taxes you'll increase revenue. The facts are the two presidents who did that ran up HUGE budget deficits. But that fact seems to not matter to people who have faith that if you cut revenue somehow income will go up.

I wish the author was correct, but she is glossing over an extremely stark philosophical divide that will only get worse.

Sarah Palin is nominated for Vice President and evangelicals are going ga ga over the choice even though the woman has as much qualification for the job as the average church goer. But who cares this is the period of satisfying your biases through voting, vilifying the opposition with the kind of attacks that are based purely on personal attacks (see Swiftboating Kerry in 2004 and calling Obama a terrorist with Muslim background) while issues are hardly discussed. Here's a segment of the population seeking symbolic reassurances about gun rights, gay marriage and abortion (even though years of conservative rule has not brought these anywhere closer to policy) still salivating at the prospect that this nutty lady might make their dreams come true, while the country burns from wars and self inflicted economic disasters); and you think that is not polarization. I suppose if you had been in Nazi Germany in 1933 you would have thought Hitler was an average politician. It is very easy to lie with statistics particularly when you deal with such a difficult concept as polarization. You can change the units of analysis to the state as opposed to the county or metro area, you can ignore the fact that the last two elections were very close, and participation very high an indication of intense mobilization on both sides.
But dream on...things are just fine. Your children will thank you for having put everyone to sleep while their world was crumbling ....

This book was an assignment for my political science class, and I started it believing, as most do, that America was a deeply divided nation of red and blue states. However, this book brilliantly shattered my views by just giving me the data without too much political rhetoric behind it.

While some reviewers believe the author is a demonstrably biased "red-stater" I think that regardless of whether or not this is the case, it is irrelevant to the overall integrity of the book which does a fantastic job of objectively presenting the data.

Anyone who believed as I did before I read this book that you live in an America at war, read this book and realize that average Americans really haven't changed all that much - the politicians have.