René H. Levy

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“Mending America’s Political Divide” is not the work of a psychologist or political scientist. Rene H. Levy, PhD is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle where he served as chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics for 26 years. His interest in neuroscience results from his work in the field of epilepsy. He published more than 350 research articles on the fate of anti-epileptic drugs in the human body and edited several books on the treatment of epilepsy.

In 1989, Dr. Levy was named “Ambassador for Epilepsy” by the International Bureau of Epilepsy. In the late 1990s, he co-founded the Eilat Conference on the Development of New Antiepileptic Drugs which is still running on a biennial basis. In 2007, Dr Levy became “Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science”.

In 2011, Dr. Levy received a “Lifetime Achievement Award from the Epilepsy Foundation”. The foundation’s president and CEO said of Levy: “He is well deserving of this award honoring his career commitment in development of prescription drug therapy for people living with epilepsy. In 2013, Dr Levy received the William G. Lennox-Cesare T. Lombroso Award, the highest award given by the American Epilepsy Society, in recognition of lifetime accomplishment and contributions related to epilepsy.

In 2010, after retiring from the University of Washington, Dr Levy drew on his interest in neuroscience to address the age-old question:

“Is there a type of hatred that is “baseless”?

In 2011, Dr Levy authored a first book called “Baseless Hatred: What It Is and What You Can Do About It” (Gefen Publishing) explaining that most interpersonal hatred is “baseless” because of its subconscious triggers and long-term consequences. This highly acclaimed book was translated in French and Hebrew and Dr Levy lectured on that subject in the US and Europe.

After the 2016 election, when political hatred became a source of societal cleavage leading to family breakups, Dr Levy wrote “Mending America’s Political Divide,” to provide the reader not trained in science with an understanding of the new tribalism-hatred condition that leads to a practical solution.

He explains that, over the last three decades, Americans experienced four simultaneous setbacks, economic inequality, cultural wars, race and religion that triggered two mind traps, political tribalism and hatred. As a result, 66 million Democrat and 69 million Republican partisans lost their empathy for each other. This diagnosis yielded the “People-Over Politics Action Plan,” a stepwise approach to re-learn how to engage with and live with political disagreements in order to co-exist respectfully.