Why We're Polarized

A discussion of the book with Richard (Dick) Virgin

A presentation on & discussion of Ezra Klein's book Why We're Polarized presented by Richard (Dick) Virgin.

“Over the past 50 years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. Those merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together.” – Simon & Schuster (2020)

Watch Richard (Dick) Virgin's presentation to hear more about Erza Klein’s book Why We’re Polarized. Originally planned as a talk for Books Between Bites, we feel this topic and discussion are pertinent now more than ever, even if the structure needs to be a bit different. As we head deeper into the 2020 election cycle and emotions rise, a fuller understanding of how we got here is essential.

Part 1

Part 2 "Dear Facebook, this is how you're breaking democracy"

Additionally, we've included this TEDTalk by Yaël Eisenstat, a former CIA analyst and diplomat, in which she talks about how Facebook and other social media are contributing to the further polarized of our society.