Hello and welcome to the 5-3-day politics podcast I'm Galen Drouk.

Think back to the night of the 2016 election, if you will, for a moment.

As the results rolled in and Trump's victory became evident, there was something else glaringly obvious in the data.

Americans were realigning along educational lines.

The main takeaway from that election was that non-college educated white voters were swinging right.

But a closer look at the data also showed that college educated voters were swinging left.

And in the time since, those trends have become more entrenched.

While Democrats have won subsequent

elections, they have had very limited success winning back the working-class

voters who'd voted for Obama just a decade prior.

And likewise, places that once defined the Republican Party,

like Harris County, Texas, seat of Houston and home of the Bush's,

are no longer seriously competed over by Republicans.

In the new book, Polarized by degrees,

how the diploma divide and the culture war

transformed American politics.

Authors Matt Grossman and David Hopkins argue that this transformation,

which predates Trump, is the largest and most consequential change in American politics since

the realignment of the Democratic South,

and that its consequences may be impacting our culture just as much, if not more, than

our politics.

So, as we prepare for another presidential election, will these trends continue or abate?

...