You were saying we've lost the ability to be contemptuous, I'm just saying in return that actually we seem very good at contempt. I think we should be better at compassion - only when it's the appropriate response, but then be capable of it when the right situation rolls around.
Personally, I found the previous president's contempt to be offensive, in that it was aimed at some people who deserved it and a lot who didn't. Contempt for him in return I felt was the only option for a moral and thinking person. Even if you agreed with him, he was clearly a horrible human being and coarsened the society just by being in it...though there were very few situations where agreeing with him was suitable for a thinking and moral person as well.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with calling someone a dipshit, because sometimes people are. I just wish we (and I mostly mean the right) had some capacity for compassion. I wrote a story to that effect, A Pledge to Improve Public Discourse: We all have a right to criticize, but we should strive to earn it first.
