Today's David Broder column is a must read. Despite the title, it's not about the present administration, but rather a study conducted by a Wesleyan University political scientist that is well worth a closer look.
Across the op-ed page was a David Brooks column, which also included a book recommendation. In this case it was a new book by "promising" young conservative writers, Ross Douthat and Peihan Salam, called "Grand New Party." This book also seems woth looking at, but I was struck by the subtle but clear difference in the approaches of these two works.
The first, recommended by Broder, is an academic study published by a distinguished academic press, which is an indication that it survived rigorous "peer-review" prior to publication. It is an effort to illuminate an important trend in our politics. The book recommended by Brooks is a electoral strategy polemic, which one National Review reviewer called a must read for those who want to know "how conservatives can go back on offense." Brooks' recommendation was published by a commercial publisher, which is to say, a publisher for whom the bottom line is the bottom line, as opposed to analytical rigor.
While both books are likely to be worth reading, the fact that one is a systematic effort to uncover and explain an empirically verifiable trend, and the other is a strategic argument about how to take advantage of this very trend, makes them a very interesting pair of books to read together. Doing so may provide readers with a more vivid sense of the difference between conceptual analysis that systematically strains to be contextual, and what is routinely understood to be "political" analysis, intended to guide interest-based strategy. These approaches are quite distinct and ought to be viewed as such.