Say Anything Blog

I just received from Harper Collins a review copy of The Holy Vote by Ray Suarez.

It looks pretty good. I'm not at all familiar with Mr. Suarez or his work on PBS' Newshour or his work on NPR's Talk Of The Nation.

I'm not a fan of public broadcasting in general, so that's probably why. Anyway, thanks to my lack of familiarity with Mr. Suarez and his politics I have absolutely no idea what angle this book will approach its topic from, which is actually sort of cool. It will be interesting to see if he addresses the subject with objectivity or if he falls into the old "right wing theocracy" rhetoric.

We'll see.

Anyway, here's the description of the book from Amazon:

The Holy Vote examines the way Americans worship, how organized religion and politics intersect in America, and how this powerful collision is transforming the current and future American mind-set

Not since the Civil War has the United States been so polarized—politically and ideologically. But at the very heart of this fracture is a fascinating rig and paradoxical marriage between our country’s politics and religions.

Over the past several election cycles, the differences between so-called "Red America"—conservative, church-affiliated, suburban, and rural—and "Blue America"—urban, secular, and socially liberal—have hardened. Although on most days, these two big American mainstreams move on parallel tracks, they increasingly find themselves head to head, ready to fight at the slightest offense. They react to new stories in different ways. They react to government power in different ways. They certainly vote in different ways.

With The Holy Vote, Ray Suarez explores the advent of this polarization and how it is profoundly changing the way in which we live our lives. With hands-on reporting, Suarez explores the attitudes and beliefs of the people behind the voting numbers, the places in which these new beliefs are being born, and how the political divide is manifesting itself across the country. The reader will come to a greater understanding of how Americans believe, and how this belief structure fuels the debates that dominate the issues on our evening news.

I look forward to reading this just as soon as I get done with How The Left Was Won.