The Big Sort

The central theory is interesting: that politics has become a central identity point in America that predicts everything about us down to where we live. Since 2008, that has largely become conventional wisdom, so long lists of things that political identity predicts (including ones that feel obvious because they're political, like school choice and book bannings) feel a little obvious. The conclusion that polarization of physical places resulting in people never meeting those with differing political views, and that this increases polarization and extreme opinions is important, but no solutions are suggested.

But to a modern reader, the changes of the last 16 years since the book was published make a lot of the premises feel silly and shallow. “There will never be political violence in the US” is a claim that looks pretty stupid after 2021. 2016, 2020 and 2024 have a lot to say to the “hyperpolarization of the 2004 election”. Indeed, I started reading this book in 2016, and couldn't quite stomach it and the distance between my reality and where the book was, and have struggled every time I've picked it up for the last 8 years.