Finished: September 29, 2023
Why I read this
Although we are still over a year out from the 2024 election, it feels like the election cycle is already in full swing (something I will always hate about American politics, especially when I compare it to the French way that I saw in 2022 where there were hardly any ads or political discussion at all until the very last few months before their election). With this I have been exceedingly interested in how the Republican party is going to handle this election. The Democrats have Biden and that’s it (right or wrong), but the Republicans have a ridiculous situation with Trump as a front-runner and sea of competition itching to challenge him. With their most recent loss in 2020, and the increasingly divided American public when discussing Republican candidates I wanted to find a book where I could learn more about how we got here, why we are staying here, and what to do about it. I heard of this book by Ezra Klein and thought to add it to my 2024 reading list.
Then, discussing the first Republican debate with my boss in France he suggested again this book to understand a bit more about why American politics are the way that they are. I was surprised that he had read it, but I figured his suggestion should up the priority a bit if even French people are reading about our system in depth by this author. So when he left of copy on my desk (in English, I can’t imagine trying to read at this level in another language, maybe one day!), it propelled even to the top of my 2023 reading list, and very few books I’ve read recently have been so filled with astonishingly relevant facts about politics that are immediately applicable to my every day life.
What I learned
From the very first arguments I realized that I was going to like this book, and that my notes were going to be extensive. The first page discussing Hilary Clinton’s book What Happened? post 2016 election and how incredible it is that a major candidate would write something like that immediately started me thinking and I’m not sure I stopped thinking about it until the book was done.
I will not try and copy all of my notes, quotes, or interesting topics from this book here, but more I wanted to review some of my major thoughts and how I think they apply to my personal life. For more details on the main arguments of the book I highly suggest you pick up a copy and read it yourself.
Us vs. Them and Identity Politics: This was by far the biggest theme that I saw throughout this read and I realized it applies to everything. One of Klein’s main points is that we are built out of identities (a theory shared a bit by the authors of Atomic Habits and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck), one of which is a political identity. However, as we become more polarized in our society the political identity is becoming more and more wrapped up in other identities making “mega identities” that which can make us hypersensitive to disagreement and polarize us further. Moreover, since humankind has evolved for a group dynamic we are very sensitive to an Us vs. Them mentality (something discussed in every behavioral psychology book ever written, Mindset, Sapiens, Thinking Fast and Slow, etc.). This mentality makes us unfairly prejudiced for people like us and against those not, and we will do it for the absolutely smallest reasons. So when politics engages us on important topics this Us. vs. Them mentality is extremely strongly engaged.
To emphasize how this affects my life I wanted to provide two examples, and hopefully anyone reading this will see similar situations in their own lives.
First, I have a colleague that is liberal and with very strong opinions on how the world should work. Her and I share many, if not all of those opinions, but for some reason we continue to clash over and over on the details of those opinions, and we have a growing animosity between the two of us that I cannot pin down. Why should someone dislike me, when I have many of the same opinions as them? Obviously it could come down to just not liking each other, but I also see colleagues that act similarly to me get along very well with her. If we use this book as an example, one explanation could be that I have many identities that she sees as threating to her group of identities. For example, I am white, male, from a privileged life, meat eater, American, and very corporate. She on the other hand is white, female, had a harder home life growing up, vegetarian, French, and very anti-corporation. So even though we agree on environmental ideology (generally), my identities are more generally associated with people who don’t care about the environment (American businessmen that put profit over everything else) and these identities immediately create a barrier between the two of us that unless actively addressed will continue to cause friction.
Second, recently I was discussing politics with a family member, and after a poorly stated point on my part I was met with extreme hostility for my point. Regardless of the right or wrong of the situation I began to ask myself why this happened. There are many reasons, such as our previous relationship, my history of being extremely argumentative, and the bad wording of my point. But also, I believe identity played a role in the larger back-lash. I think if I had shared more identities with this person my comment would have been received with a cool disagreement followed by corrective discussion instead of fiery backlash without understanding. In the future it will be important for me to think about this when I speak on touchy subjects, and it could even be a good strategy to reduce problems to try and activate similar identities before discussing these topics so I will be more of an “Us” and less of a “Them”. Something to look into in the future.
Engagement in Politics: Basically everything written here supported the fact that you will be more polarized the more engaged in politics you become. You become more stubborn in your beliefs and less open to discussion, and you get more and more upset with outcomes that disagree with your viewpoints. I see this every day with those people around me who are well engaged in politics. A common occurrence is that a liberal person will say “How can people be so stupid”, or “I absolutely cannot understand how he could win”, discussing Donald Trump. But tens of millions of people voted for him, just saying the other side must be stupid or ignorant frankly leaves the problem unaddressed which is that the system and how he uses it allows him to be successful, it is not that a huge portion of Americans are bad people. This is not a discussion I have to have with people who are not politically engaged.
Moreover, the final points of the book discussing the return to more local politics I liked a lot. I am one of those who doesn’t know my mayor, or what bills are being proposed for the local community that will immediately and concretely impact my life. Before I get riled up over abortion in Texas, maybe it would be more productive for me and my community to support local government to support reproductive rights. This will continue to be a challenge for me living internationally, but I believe that it will be one of my main takeaways from this book.
The Definition of Rationality: This was one of the most interesting and not intuitive arguments I found in this book. We find ourselves frequently being lost watching clear and excessive hypocrisy in politics wondering how on Earth these things happen, and the solution Klein presents is actually very satisfying. People are actually rational, but the definition of rational is hard to nail down. Even if someone is presented with rational (for example peer reviewed research) figures that disagree with their viewpoint is it more rational for them to change their opinion if it means disagreeing with their in-group? I agree with the text that it probably is more rational to resist the change of opinion and safeguard your community in terms of what will improve your life the most.
So the question becomes how to handle that and it is impossible to say. How do you convince a large unified community that is staunchly resistant to any new information about climate change and human’s role in it if anyone who is part of a group that is climate skeptical could lose their friends, job, community, and general well-being by changing their opinion? It is a very hard question, and I think it bears a constant reminder for people who’s job it is to work on such tasks. The people you are trying to convince may have a lot on the line to change their opinion. If someone if part of a strong church community with their friends, family, and pretty much their entire life centralized around a group that believes abortion is murder (and is never going to change that opinion), changing their opinion and supporting pro-choice legislation will quite literally destroy their life. We have to adjust tactics in these high stakes situations.
Who gets to Choose: A final theme that I loved was the impact of the change in demographics in the US. In the coming years, the US will likely be majority non-white, and the implications for that are pretty extreme. The group that has controlled America for its entire history will lose their iron grip on culture, governance, and the trajectory of our country. Remember loss aversion? People hate to lose and will do a lot to not feel that. So losing the ability to craft the America you want for your children is a huge loss that is going to invoke extreme fear and motivation to fight the other side even if the new majority disagrees. This fear I believe is driving all of the backlash towards wokeness and LGBTQ+, especially transgender people. These people with traditional values are seeing that they are losing their ability to control culture to people that they disagree with, and that internal hatred of loss is coming out as a war against this new group who is quickly taking charge of America’s cultural identity (as the majority normally does). So at the end of the day this fight is more about who gets to choose what is ok to say and who doesn’t. Sexist comments can get you cancelled (and ruin your life) because the new cultural community does not accept them, they now get to choose what is ok, and that feels really bad to the community that has been choosing for the last two centuries in America. I agree with these changes, but understanding why there is backlash I think is a good thing, especially in personal relationships.
What I didn’t like
One thing I continued to think throughout this book was “would a Republican reading this be receptive to the message?”. The author is a self proclaimed democrat, vegan, and liberal. He has been writing for the left side for his entire career, and this book was no different. Much of his discussion on the right was full of loaded words and critical comments, and although his reviews of the left could include criticism as well, I found most of the text heavily skewed. So for me this text was very informative and I was very receptive (supporting Klein’s point that we seek information that supports our viewpoints and not information that challenges us), however I do not know if many Republican readers would be receptive to this, and doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of this? Why write about a huge problem of polarization in America that is specifically related to the two parties, and then write it in a way that anyone who fits the system you described on the right will refuse to pick it up or to believe a word of it? To improve this I think less charged language and more discussion of Republican views could have helped, even an afterword that was written as an opinion of some Republican politicians on the findings of the text would be very interesting.
Questions I asked
How can I use the principle of identities to have more civil and productive conversations with people I disagree with?
How can I become more engaged in my local politics? Will that make me happier than being completely unengaged from politics?
One point was that the winner is responsible to make changes to make friendship with the lose, which I think is true. But how do you define the winner?
My Favorite Quote
“The underlying principle in all this is that the two parties both represent huge swaths of Americans, and the fact that one has the majority does not mean the other should be deprived of a voice”
Ezra Klein
Books I liked like this one
Talking with Strangers: Malcolm Gladwell (for a deep and modern analysis of why some of societies problems exist)
Nudge: Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler (For a discussion of how systems can be built and how even minor changes can have large implications)
Book Reviews for Mom 