UNSORTING AMERICA

By the way, if people are interested in looking at how current politics play out beyond just the election, it's worth taking a look at Bill Bishop's "Big Sort blog" on Slate.com. Whether you agree with some of his analysis or not, it's at least food for thought in thinking about how our current political season reflects possible shifts in our social organization as a nation.

One of the more interesting points he has to make - and this is central in his book too - is that the current election is showing signs that we are becoming more partisan than ever. Just because the Democrats have picked up more support in the last four years doesn't represent a fundamental reshuffling of our political allegiances. More specifically, Bishop is arguing that what we've seen is the disappearance of true independents - more than ever, he argues, Americans are aligned into a two-party system, with fewer and fewer deviations from the party ticket (uh, PUMAs aside I suppose).

--O.W.