Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 12

These are strange days in American politics. We have tried to deal with that strangeness bluntly, objectively and clearly. We are in a “moment.” Whether that moment becomes the “new normal” or remains a historical blip, we have no way of knowing. Writing about it in real time, we take it as it comes. We are political scientists, not magicians, and thus have a hard bias toward the scientific, the empirical, the observable. Distinguishing between truth and falsity is central to what we do. We can make projections and predictions but our crystal ball has been particularly hazy lately and we make no pretense of knowing the future.

The 2016 election only exacerbated divisions that have been building for decades, the product of economic displacement, demographic change and a widening gap between those with college educations and those without. Some days it really does feel like there are two Americas, and the challenge of writing a textbook for both of them has been heavy at times. We have worked hard to explain the nature of our ideological divisions as objectively as possible, and I suspect we have ruffled a few feathers, including our own. That’s as it should be. No one likes to be described as a statistic or a faceless member of a demographic group or have opinions ascribed to them that they may not even knowingly hold, or may actively reject. It’s a good thing if this book inspires debate, disagreement, and discovery.

Ideological polarization is not the only characteristic of American politics that has been a challenge to deal with in this edition. We have a president who likes the limelight and, love him or hate him (it’s hard to be indifferent), he delights in shattering the norms that underlie the rules of American politics. Indeed, that is his appeal to many Americans who would like to see the system turned upside down. That means we have had to be more careful about focusing on those norms and explaining the roles they play in supporting the Constitution, so that we can fully understand the consequences as we decide whether they matter.

Finally, as we say later in this book, if we have a bias it is unquestionably toward diversity, toward the whole crazy salad of Americans. We can’t write effectively for our students unless they can see themselves mirrored in the pages. This book has to belong to them, and so we have deplored the movement to return to an America where women, people of color, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and other minority groups are marginalized. In the last two years some Americans have felt more free to voice disparaging or degrading remarks about members of all those groups. We reject that view.

Writing the eighth brief edition also gave us an opportunity to revitalize the book’s theme to reflect the influences of modern technology on power and citizenship, in particular the ways that citizenship is mediated by third parties. To do that, we looked at the ways that controlling the political narrative has translated into political power and how that power has shifted with the advent of new and social media. This coverage is integrated throughout each chapter and is especially notable in the Citizens and . . . sections and the Don’t Be Fooled by . . . boxes’ focus on digital media.

Reviews for this edition helped guide some key changes that we hope will make the text even more useful to you and your students. We have sought to streamline both the main narrative and its features to provide a more focused reading experience. New What’s at Stake . . . ? vignettes examine such topics as the activism of the students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, the rise of the alt right and the Make America Great Again movement, the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court amidst discord in Congress, what happens when outsiders challenge party establishment, the consequences of overturning executive action on climate change, and Donald Trump’s presidency. One new Profiles in Citizenship interview appears in this edition — we had the opportunity to interview Senator Tammy Duckworth before the 2018 midterms.