"Love Your Enemies", Aurthur Brooks

https://www.amazon.com/love-your-enemies-brooks/s?k=love+your+enemies+brooks

A worthy read for our times by an ex-professional orchestra french horn player, a current staunch Catholic intellectual, and outgoing president of AEI,

Aurthur's thesis is that our problem is "contempt", and that in sort of a self help way by looking at how contempt damages us personally, breaks our relationships and is toxic to our country, no rational person would continue to want to wallow in it.

He is right of course, however, even though he brings in the work of Jonathan Haidt (the innate moral virtues) in chapter 4, I question if he really has internalized (or maybe doesn't agree with) Haidt's thesis that we are not in fact "rational", but rather "rationalizing".

He says a few times a version of "Unless we hope to become a one-party state...we" 1) need to honor different viewpoints 2) can't afford contempt 3). require a healthy opposition ... etc.

My take on late 20 teen America is that half the country thought we WERE a defacto "one party state" as of 2008, with the Deep / Administrative State being totally locked, academia, the bulk of the media and media happily on board, topped off with  a demographic juggernaut of thoroughly indoctrinated left leaning youth and safety net addicted immigrants (legal and illegal)  insuring that the single-party lock was only going to get more solid.

Their response to Trump seems to be: 1). Impeach him 2). get rid of Electoral College / Senate power 3). Stack the SCOTUS  4). Collect all the guns in case the "deplorables" take offence to any of this. If they do accomplish those goals, we will have a one-party state, and I'm not so certain that a whole bunch of folks on the left don't find that to be a very good idea.

If not, then the advice in this book on learning to listen, the advantages of understanding "them", and "better disagreement" is excellent.

While there no doubt some right-wing extremists that unfriend, shun, etc, I've never met any. (just like the folks at CBS in NY in 1980 were shocked because they didn't know a single Reagan voter maybe). My sense is that Christians like Brooks and myself really just don't "get" how truly inhuman "Love Your Enemies" is -- we know it is hard, however we accept on faith that it is possible. My sense is that for many non-Christianw, this admonishment is akin to "Be a married bachelor" or "be a living dead person".

An oxymoron ... like "military intelligence'.

When one sees something as irrational to the point of being ridiculous, it seems unlikely they will seek to undertake the difficult task of embarking on the attempt.

Again, I hope I am wrong!