Today, September 7, 2016, is the official publication date of my new book, written in collaboration with Matt Grossmann of Michigan State University. In Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats, Matt and I explain how the two major parties have come to be so different and how this difference affects American politics. Our analysis encompasses voters, party activists, financial donors, political candidates, presidents, members of Congress, interest groups, party organizations, intellectuals, think tanks, and the news media. We came to believe over the course of writing this book that much of what is happening in the political world today is impossible to explain without dispensing with the assumption that each party is simply a mirror image of the other—a conclusion that the 2016 election is doing a pretty good job of bolstering.
Asymmetric Politics is now available in both physical and electronic formats at the usual retailers or directly from Oxford University Press. Under the kind auspices of John Sides and Danny Hayes, we will be guest blogging over the next few days at the Washington Post's Monkey Cage—the premier political science blog—in order to give readers an introduction to our main argument and share a few interesting findings. I will be updating this post on Honest Graft as each installment of our Monkey Cage blogging is published.
Part One (September 7): Republicans and Democrats Can't Even Agree About How They Disagree
Part Two (September 8): How Different Are the Democratic and Republican Parties? Too Different to Compare
Part Three (September 9): How the Conservative Media Is Taking Over the Republican Party