How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal’s Guide to Toxic Polarization

Price: $6.95
(as of Apr 21, 2025 00:25:42 UTC – Details)

“An essential guide for American liberals worried about the future of our country.” —Taylor Dotson, author of “The Divide”

“I felt saner and less afraid for the future after reading [his books].” —Brendan Bartholomew, reader

If you’re someone who sees Trump and Trumpism as dangerous threats to American democracy, it’s of the utmost importance to understand the dynamics that led us to this moment in time. This book will help you understand how we got here — and how we might avoid worst-case scenarios.

How does a democracy fall apart? One path — the path we’re currently on — is extreme division. Many people grow to hate and fear the “other side” so much that beating them takes precedence over everything else.

Can we avoid worst-case scenarios? To help us avoid increasing chaos, dysfunction, and democratic erosion in America, we need many more people to understand how toxic polarization works and the ways they can help solve this problem.

What’s in the book? This book examines:

The distorted, overly pessimistic views liberals and conservatives have of each otherHow contempt and fear lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of conflict — which helps create the very things that upset us (including undemocratic behavior)What we can all do to help solve this problem

This book will also help you have less angry and more constructive conversations with people on the “other side” — which is, as this book shows, one small way we can all help overcome our toxic divides.

“Elwood is one of the wisest voices on the topic of toxic polarization… America needs its citizens to listen to Zach.” —Daniel F. Stone, author of “Undue Hate”

Zachary Elwood is the host of the psychology podcast People Who Read People (behavior-podcast.com), which sometimes focuses on political polarization. His first book, Defusing American Anger, was written for all Americans (conservative and liberal). To learn more about his work, go to american-anger.com.