Bowker Data Service Summary
By virtually all measures, polarization in Congress has increased dramatically over the course of the past two decades. Former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen lived through this era, serving six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Drawing from his own experiences in the Congressional trenches, he tackles the root cause of why Democrats and Republicans arrived at a point where they barely speak to each other.
Long Description
The debt-ceiling debacle of 2011 was clear evidence of the dangerous polarization of American politics. Heedless of the warnings of economists, a majority of Republicans in the House refused to allow the Treasury to borrow enough money to pay for spending already ordered by Congress. The government avoided a catastrophic default only by unprecedented legislative contortions. The debt ceiling fight also showed that the two parties simply don't understand each other. In Dangerous Convictions, former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen, explains how beneath the surface of our political debates, the incompatible world views of the two parties have turned Congress into a dysfunctional body. "Years of listening to what seemed to me to be preposterous arguments in committee, on the House floor, or in private conversations," he writes, "changed my mind about ourcapacity to find bipartisan agreement on the most fundamental topics." Likewise, most Republican Members of Congress gave no credence to Democratic arguments on budget and tax issues, health care, and climate change. Allen argues that "smaller government, lower taxes" in all times and circumstances is not aneconomic policy, but an ideological barrier to meaningful debate and the simplest compromises. In the last thirty years, he suggests, Republicans and Democrats have been speaking different languages; GOP Members increasingly see government as a threat to personal liberty, while Democrats continue to believe it can be a vehicle to expand opportunity and serve the common good. Combining personal experience with the insights of George Lakoff, Norman Ornstein, Robert Bellah, Isaiah Berlin, and many others, Allen explains why we need to understand the ideological conflict and escape its grip--and allow Congress to work productively on our 21st century challenges.
Main Description
The debt-ceiling debacle of 2011 was clear evidence of the dangerous polarization of American politics. Heedless of the warnings of economists, a majority of Republicans in the House refused to allow the Treasury to borrow enough money to pay for spending already ordered by Congress. The government avoided a catastrophic default only by unprecedented legislative contortions. The debt ceiling fight also showed that the two parties simply don't understand each other. InDangerous Convictions, former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen, explains how beneath the surface of our political debates, the incompatible world views of the two parties have turned Congress into a dysfunctional body. "Years of listening to what seemed to me to be preposterous arguments in committee, on the House floor, or in private conversations," he writes, "changed my mind about our capacity to find bipartisan agreement on the most fundamental topics." Likewise, most Republican Members of Congress gave no credence to Democratic arguments on budget and tax issues, health care, and climate change. Allen argues that "smaller government, lower taxes" in all times and circumstances is not an economic policy, but an ideological barrier to meaningful debate and the simplest compromises. In the last thirty years, he suggests, Republicans and Democrats have been speaking different languages; GOP Members increasingly see government as a threat to personal liberty, while Democrats continue to believe it can be a vehicle to expand opportunity and serve the common good. Combining personal experience with the insights of George Lakoff, Norman Ornstein, Robert Bellah, Isaiah Berlin, and many others, Allen explains why we need to understand the ideological conflict and escape its grip--and allow Congress to work productively on our 21st century challenges.
Main Description
The debt-ceiling debacle of 2011 was clear evidence of the dangerous polarization of American politics. Heedless of the warnings of economists, a majority of Republicans in the House refused to allow the Treasury to borrow enough money to pay for spending already ordered by Congress. Thegovernment avoided a catastrophic default only by unprecedented legislative contortions. The debt ceiling fight also showed that the two parties simply don't understand each other. In Dangerous Convictions, former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen, explains how beneath the surface of our political debates, the incompatible world views of the two parties have turned Congress into adysfunctional body. "Years of listening to what seemed to me to be preposterous arguments in committee, on the House floor, or in private conversations," he writes, "changed my mind about our capacity to find bipartisan agreement on the most fundamental topics." Likewise, most Republican Members of Congress gave no credence to Democratic arguments on budget and tax issues, health care, and climate change. Allen argues that "smaller government, lower taxes" in all times and circumstances is not an economic policy, but an ideological barrier to meaningfuldebate and the simplest compromises. In the last thirty years, he suggests, Republicans and Democrats have been speaking different languages; GOP Members increasingly see government as a threat to personal liberty, while Democrats continue to believe it can be a vehicle to expand opportunity andserve the common good. Combining personal experience with the insights of George Lakoff, Norman Ornstein, Robert Bellah, Isaiah Berlin, and many others, Allen explains why we need to understand the ideological conflict and escape its grip - and allow Congress to work productively on our 21st century challenges.
Main Description
The rhetoric of the 2012 presidential campaign exposed the deeply rooted sources of political polarization in American. One side celebrated individualism and divided the public into "makers and takers;" the other preached "better together" as the path forward. Both focused their efforts on the "base" not the middle. In Dangerous Convictions, former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen argues that what's really wrong with Congress is the widening, hardening conflict in worldviews that leaves the two parties unable to understand how the other thinks about what people should do on their own and what we should do together. Members of Congress don't just disagree, they think the other side makes no sense. Why are conservatives preoccupied with cutting taxes, uninterested in expanding health care coverage and in denial about climate change? What will it take for Congress to recover a capacity for pragmatic compromise on these issues? Allen writes that we should treat self-reliance (the quintessential American virtue) and community (our characteristic instinct to cooperate) as essential balancing components of American culture and politics, instead of setting them at war with each other. Combining his personal insights from 12 years In Congress with recent studies of how human beings form their political and religious views, Allen explains why we must escape the grip of our competing worldviews to enable Congress to work productively on our 21st century challenges.