The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America - Paperbackby Ronald Brownstein (Author) In recent years American politics has seemingly become much more partisan, more zero sum, more vicious, and less able to confront the real problems our nation faces. What has happened? In The Second Civil War, respected political commentator Ronald Brownstein diagnoses the electoral, demographic, and institutional forces that have wreaked such change over the American political landscape, pulling politics into the margins