Cast your votes here! The year 2021 would certainly be worth forgetting if its worst elements weren’t so clearly continuing on into the New Year 2022 and very likely beyond: the Omicron surge, the worst U.S. inflation in decades, and the maelstrom of misinformation swirling around the clear benefits of vaccination and the equally obvious outcome of the 2020 election. In this episode entitled Speaking Truth in Polarized Times, we ask what TPP guests in 2021 speak most insightfully to the challenges of this era. We’ve highlighted ten great insights, asking listeners to select the best of them, to be announced early in 2022. We kick off our 10 nominees with Harvard University political geographer Ryan Enos on the trend of political polarization right down to the neighborhood level, where Republicans and Democrats cluster apart from each other. Did we suddenly arrive at this moment of hyperpartisanship and rabid misinformation? Princeton historian Julian Zelizer explains that the blueprint for Congressional polarization was laid decades ago by a young firebrand named Newt Gingrich whose accusations brought down Speaker of the House Jim Wright in 1989. And are there any clear routes out of this gordian knot of political identities, where every issue is immediately politicized making consensus solutions all but impossible in our highly antagonized zero-sum polity and society? New York Times Contributing Writer Thomas Edsall places the burden on the more rational of the two major parties, the Democrats, to ameliorate the sense of threat perceived by the American right. And Dr. Omar Ali finds inspiration in the resilience of independent black American leaders as far back as Frederick Douglass and as recently as Lenora Fulani. There’s something for every inquiring mind here in our list of Top Guest Insights from 2021. Which speaks most directly to your hopes and concerns? We hope you’ll listen through this episode, then click the link in our show notes to complete the website poll. SHOW NOTES Cast your votes here! This episode features: Ryan D. Enos: Website, Episode 3 Nick Andert: Behind the Curve, Episode 8 Julian Zelizer: Princeton University, Episode 1 Katherine Gehl: Institute for Political Innovation, Episode 5 Jeanine Guidry: VCU, Episode 6 Steven Hassan: Freedom of Mind, Episode 7 Rod Lurie: IMDB, Episode 11 Beth Silvers: Pantsuit Politics, Episode 16 Omar Ali: UNC Greensboro, Episode 16 Thomas Edsall: NYT, Episode 13 Find us online! Join & Support us on Patreon! Twitter: @purpleprincipl Facebook: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast Instagram: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast Our website: https://bit.ly/2ZCpFaQ Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2UfFSja