Hatred ought to be a side dish, but it’s becoming the meal

In March, more than 55 million Americans tuned in to the Oscars to see a universally beloved historical love story win Best Picture. It was a glorious, unifying moment in our culture. People had been seeing the movie and talking about it for three months. Almost everybody was enraptured by it. Many went to see it more than once.

It wasn’t March of this year, though. I’m talking about 20 years ago, in 1998, when Titanic won, as its director, James Cameron, jubilantly proclaimed, “I’m king of the world!” That victory felt widely shared because his movie was so broadly …