Americans aren't angry, writes American Enterprise Institute President Arthur C. Brooks (Love Your Enemies). When we're angry, we try to fix what's broken, and we think we can. These days, we're past hoping for a fix, and are instead "addicted to political contempt." Contempt doesn't try to fix anything; it "seeks to exile . . . to mock, shame, and permanently exclude from relationships by belittling, humiliating, and ignoring." Anger cares. Contempt says, "You disgust me. You are beneath caring about."
Brooks's diagnosis is on target. Presidential candidates dump fellow citizens into a "basket of deplorables." Trump's insults are as numerous as Shakespeare's, though far less witty. Fox News pundits find nothing worthwhile in anything any liberal has ever thought or said.
How did we turn into a "culture of contempt"? While we're each responsible for our own actions and addictions, Brooks thinks America's contempt pushers have a lot to answer for—members of the "outrage industrial complex" in the media, social media gurus and trolls who encourage ideological siloing, political parties that don't even try to appeal beyond their settled base.
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