Divided We Fall: Why Consensus Matters (Geopolitics in the 21st Century) - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Alice M. Rivlin was a key player in national economic and social policymaking for nearly sixty years, serving in the administrations of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. She was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office and was director of the Office of Management and Budget-the first woman to serve in either of those roles-and a vice chair of the Federal Reserve. She was a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution for nearly six decades and also taught public policy at Georgetown, Harvard, and other universities. Her numerous books include Systematic Thinking for Social Action and Reviving the American Dream.

Sheri Rivlin is the President of Zen Political Research, a public opinion, marketing research, and communications strategy consulting firm. From 2008 to 2018, she and

Allan Rivlin co-edited the website CenteredPolitics.com. Allan Rivlin is the CEO of Zen Political Research. From 1993 to 1997, he served in the first Clinton administration as a senior adviser to Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala

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“I decided to write this book because I am as frustrated, concerned, and even fearful about American politics and governance today as I have ever been before.”

America, the polarized. That was not the country Alice Rivlin wanted to live in. 

In Divided We Fall, Rivlin and her coauthors, Sheri Rivlin and Allan Rivlin, delve deep into the American body politic to try to tease out what it is that has led to the hard-edged, opposing views that threaten the future of democracy in the United States.

One of the country’s most influential economists, Rivlin served in in three presidential administrations. She knew firsthand the importance of reaching across the aisle to find bipartisan support for legislation. And as the head of Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget, and as the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, she reinforced the nonpartisan nature of the work they produced. 

The hyperpolarization of American politics during the last years of Rivlin’s life, along with the election of Donald Trump, drove Rivlin to try to understand what had changed in American political life to unleash such unyielding attitudes. 

Looking back at her long career, Rivlin saw that sharply opposing perspectives have always been part of the political landscape in the United States. But it has been possible for the seemingly most recalcitrant senator and congressperson to reach consensus when it came to fiscal matters, especially the national budget, and Alice Rivlin was there to see it happen, especially during the Clinton and Obama years. She shows us how agreement was reached—or not, in some cases—and what it takes to bring those divided together.

Divided We Fall offers a way forward to unwind difference and restore a shared sense of appreciation for working together to move the country forward as a whole.