Reinhardt: It’s no secret that over the last 15-20 years, political commentary in this country has become ever more partisan, but also increasingly vitriolic, manipulative, and at times downright nasty. And this applies to both sides of the political spectrum, whether you describe it as Liberal vs. Conservative, Left vs. Right, Democrat vs. Republican , or whatever labels you may care to use. On TV, radio, and the internet, commentators practically scream 
their opinions and assault their opponents, as like-minded viewers, listeners, and readers nod their support, while those who disagree either fume or simply boycott. Issues like abortion, gun-control, gay marriage, sex education, and public displays of religion, to name just a few, not only absorb a tremendous amount of attention and energy, but also divide Americans so sharply as to create family rifts and determine friendships and even intimate relationships.
This book took root when I began to ask myself some questions. Why is the tone of modern American politics so nasty, particularly on domestic social issues? Why are political debates, both formal and informal, frequently more about who’s right and who’s wrong than they are about a search for the truth? Why are those debates so often framed by competing ideologies, with people on either side spewing dogma each other? And why had political discussions in America, particularly those concerning issues belonging to the so-called “culture wars,” become so mean-spirited? How did it come to this?
I’m a Historian, so perhaps it was natural that as I began to mull it over, I soon began thinking about how social issues, both large and small, used to get decided back in “the old days,” and what is different about that decision making process now? And that in turn led me to a whole mess of questions about how society is structured, how those structures worked in the past, and how they have changed over time. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that what was different now as opposed to centuries past, is that there are no more communities where such issues would get decided and enforced for and by the local population.