Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal

"It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve thought about the essay at the core of this book – about how America has sorted itself into four tribes that increasingly view each other with suspicion and contempt – just about every day since I first read it. I think I’ve sent a link to the Atlantic excerpt to nearly everyone I know. George Packer’s analysis of how the pandemic and Trump-era hypercharged division in the country is bleak, despite the positive spin that the title’s framing and the book’s final chapter attempt to put on things. But it’s essential reading to understand what has gone wrong in our politics and civic institutions."