Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It reads like a collection of cheesy Hollywood movie plots based off the most sensationalist news articles of the past several years, presented without footnotes and devoid of any nuance. The writer, while decrying polarization, is himself bafflingly partisan. For instance, after claiming the Right are a danger to democracy, he uses their chant of “Not my president!” after Biden’s election as an example of them not accepting democracy. But that rallying cry came from the LEFT after Trump’s election. Furthermore, he uses the Capitol riots as an example of escalating violence, but doesn’t acknowledge any of the violence and damage caused by BLM rioting. He claims the right sees America’s institutions as illegitimate, while he himself is parroting the far-left cliche that America’s system of government is irredeemable and archaic. (I’m not saying right wing extremism isn’t worrisome. It definitely is. But they’re exaggerated and caricatured in this book to the point one can’t help but laugh. And the fact he completely ignores extremism on the left makes it resemble Rachel Maddow’s daydream.) I’ve been very interested in our increasing polarization for over a decade, and have read almost every book on the subject. This is the worst one I’ve EVER read. Usually authors who study polarization tend to look at things from a neutral lens, which typically leads them to show the nuances of our fraught culture with a cool head. This author is almost gleefully throwing matches on the kindling while pretending to warn of an impending fire. It’s alarmist to a cartoonish degree, using clickbait rhetoric that is more likely to create a self-fulfilling prophecy than reduce tensions. If I can’t return this book then I’d rather throw it in the trash rather than deal with it wasting space.