What Happened to the Vital Center? demonstrates that American politics has become so rancorous because it has been unable to heal wounds opened up by Sixties-era protest and institutional change. While many scholars suggest that the answer to our current predicament is greater presidential power, this work shows that doubling down on the myth of transcendent presidential leadership is likely to exacerbate, not heal, our wounds. Instead, the authors recommend that a reconstituted party system may once again permit political leaders to prevent the worst excesses to democracy that now routinely roil the country.
