In the introduction to Getting Over Ourselves, I wrote, “We cannot dehumanize other people without first sacrificing our own humanity. The impulse there, as we have seen, is so often—and always with utterly disastrous results—to try to get rid of the feared and...

The blizzard of executive orders designed to wreck the place had only just begun on Tuesday, January 21, and it was already traumatizing, as clearly intended in addition to wrecking the place. It felt like another Tuesday: September 11, 2001. How could this have...