THE 2016 presidential race is already upon us. Do you find that prospect exciting or exhausting? If you chose the latter, I’m willing to wager it’s in part because of the destructive rhetoric that threatens to accompany the election. At least half of American adults felt that the last presidential campaign was too negative.

The conventional approach is to blame the politicians and tacticians for this dreaded odium politicum. But we citizens need to look inward a little. Whether or not we want to admit it, political hate is a demand-driven phenomenon. We are the ones creating a big market for it.

Political hate generally appears in one of three basic forms.

The first is what some psychologists call “hot hate,” based on anger. Imagine yourself yelling at the television, and you get the picture. Most Americans would be ashamed to say “I hate Republicans” or “I hate Democrats.” But our market preferences tell the true story. We reward professional political pundits who say or write that the other side is evil or stupid or both.

For some haters, the hot variety is a little too crude. They prefer “cool hate,” based on contempt, and express disgust for another person through sarcasm, dismissal or mockery.