sentimentalism

Republicans duly fashioned themselves as the Daddy Party, in contrast to the Democrats’ unrealistic and emotional sentimentalism.

“But he, Robert Weaver and Alan Cober were the first wave of breaking through this realism and sentimentalism with an expressionistic intensity and impressionistic fluidity.”

Rather than fuzzy-wuzzy sentimentalism, that liminal space between objective reality and the netherworld is presented as a natural, if exceedingly rare, fact of life.

Fear for the future of the country percolates up from the sea of sentimentalism in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

In other words, it's the "dismantling of sentimentalism," which Knott said is "good news."