Identity Crisis is the most important book written on the 2016 election. Based on reams of data covering virtually every controversy, theory, and explanation for the outcome, it settles many of the debates that have raged over the past two years. More importantly, it offers a framework for thinking about American politics in this era. The authors — political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck — show how identity drives American politics, why our political identities are getting stronger and angrier, and how the Obama and Trump eras have changed our parties and made conflict more irresolvable. Only some of the conversations I have on this show really change how I think about politics, but this was one of them. Don’t miss it. Recommended books: Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild Divided by Color by Donald Kinder The American Voter by Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes 

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