Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

by Arthur C. Brooks

America’s politics right now are similar to most periods of partisan disagreement, or do you think problems have reached a dangerous low point?” Seventy-one percent of respondents chose the latter.14 Almost two-thirds of Americans say that the future of the country is a very or somewhat significant source of stress, more than the percentage who say they are stressed by money concerns or work.15 Even more disconcerting, 60 percent of Americans consider our current political moment the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember—a figure, the American Psychological Association points out, that spans “every generation, including those who lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis and the September 11 terrorist attacks.”16 More than 70 percent of Americans believe that the country will be greatly hurt if opposing parties don’t work together.17