ONE OF BARACK OBAMAâS FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gatesâs â5 books to read this summer,â this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that Americaâs political system isnât broken. The truth is scarier: itâs working exactly as designed. In this âsuperbly researchedâ (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing usâand how we are polarizing itâwith disastrous results. âThe American political systemâwhich includes everyone from voters to journalists to the presidentâis full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,â writes political analyst Ezra Klein. âWe are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.â âA thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysisâ (The New York Times Book Review), Why Weâre Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind Americaâs descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trumpâs rise to the Democratic Partyâs 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. âWell worth readingâ (New York magazine), this is an âeye-openingâ (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politicsâand perhaps at yourself.