Hope or Realism?

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Review of George Packer, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 2021).

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George Packer begins his reflections on the state of the nation with the following quip: “I am an American. No, I don’t want pity.” (Kindle loc 30) Packer’s book expresses his hopes for national renewal, however bleak things seem to be; pity is antithetical to sustaining these hopes. However, a…