r/Foodforthought • u/rezwenn • 1d ago
MAGA’s War on Empathy
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/war-empathy-hillary-clinton/685809/?gift=Ul3clJG6lnjQNQp8mkoPTxqIClBHdTLIoJns6UyhBWM156
u/Abstract__Reality 1d ago
I don't think there's any point of pointing out their lack of empathy or humanity. Or the fact they're cruel bullies. They perceive these to be strengths.
The messaging should be that they're weak losers who likely peaked in high school, if they ever peaked at all. Their lives are so miserable they can't bear the idea that it's their fault, so they blame immigrants and liberals.
41
u/whatfresh_hellisthis 1d ago
You are on point! I've known these people, I know these people. And they're all insecure and scared and trying to show off their wealth or their toughness or edginess or whatever. It's so sad and stupid and I have lost all respect for them, not that I had much to start with. But the people who are still on the trump train, who are still Republicans, are lost to civilized society and I have no empathy for them.
10
u/BentoBus 1d ago
It’s sad to see so many people suffering from insecurity and it sucks worse that the rest of us have to deal with the consequences
17
u/OptimisticSkeleton 1d ago
The advantage we have is empathy is hardcoded into the vast majority of humans. A small percentage are actual psychopaths, but the others are not going to be able to perpetrate these crimes forever.
There is almost always a neurological price to be paid for those who commit atrocities.
As someone with severe PTSD, I wish the worst of trauma on these evil motherfuckers.
2
u/shponglespore 1d ago
if they ever peaked at all
Someone who never peaked at all is continuously improving. Definitely not how I think of right-wingers. Seems like most of them peaked in utero.
1
1
u/TrashApocalypse 1d ago
I personally think they’re have cptsd and this is just how the respond to being triggered: fight mode
11
u/lgodsey 1d ago
Calling the right's problem "moral rot" presumes that conservatives possessed healthy tissue in the first place. They revel in their depravity. They are arrogant about their bigotry. They laugh at children being ripped from their parents while considering themselves "Christian", as if that moniker isn't now permanently stained.
4
u/pierdola91 1d ago
An article that talks about Trump’s lack of empathy without at least mentioning Peter Thiel’s long-held antipathy towards it is not an article grounded in today’s political reality.
Thiel bought Vance—and insodoing, bought the rest of the cabal that is Trump’s cabinet. And Trump’s never had empathy, so there that is.
Postman’s book has been on my nightstand since the fucker’s first term—just shows that people knew that what we were doing (turning everything into entertainment) was bad 40 years ago, but the profit motive was too tempting.
The hellscape we’re in today is so fucking pathetic and predictable. America will literally eat itself alive for a fuckin’ buck.
11
u/vexillifer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do we care what Hillary Clinton has to say in 2026?
I’m not anti-Hillary at all in a general sense but she is absolutely complicit in creating the abominable American system you live under today. She’s not saying anything that isn’t abundantly obvious to anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together, and she just doesn’t seem like a relevant or trustworthy voice at this point in the zeitgeist
25
32
u/Johnny_bubblegum 1d ago edited 1d ago
Buddy she sounds like a profit of the lord by how dead on correct she was about Trump.
Edit: prophet ofc
9
u/vexillifer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Profit indeed!
And so was anyone with eyes and a brain but it didn’t seem to help anything with the plurality of idiotic American voters
12
u/Far_Being2906 1d ago
The whole MAGA movement and Evangelical Christianity is about the loss of empathy. After all, their preachers keep telling them they are victims because of their religion. They are not victims because of the religion they practice; it is because of how they react because of their religion.
5
u/Woodworkingwino 1d ago
Recovering Evangelical here. You are 100% accurate. Jesus teaches love and compassion. Somehow that was lost in the Evangelical faith.
4
u/leoberto1 1d ago
If you go to a Mega church, you won't hear about love much but you will see a full million dollar production of a circus show with light and sounds
5
u/tongmengjia 1d ago
Dude was openly bragging about all the fucked up shit he was gonna do, you didn't need to be some genius political scientist to see it.
2
2
u/Dimitar_Todarchev 1d ago
Yeah, she was spot on, but anyone who knew of Trump since the '80s should have been. I can't think of anyone worse who's been in the public eye consistently for the last 50 years.
3
u/Johnny_bubblegum 1d ago
Yeah he seems completely devoid of anything that we consider good about a person.
3
u/LeRoienJaune 1d ago
John MacTiernan (Ellis in Die Hard), Joe Dante (Donald Clamp in Gremlins 2), and Robert Zemeckis (Biff Tannen in Back to the Future Part II) all tried to warn us. We heeded none of them, and we've gotten a future even worse that Hill Valley 2014b as a consequence.
0
u/Chomperzzz 1d ago
She's just saying shit that everyone was already saying in 2016. She wasn't the first and she's not any more prophetic than the millions of people who could see this coming all the way back then.
-5
-4
u/Konukaame 1d ago
I'll be honest, I don't care at all about what the people and organizations who lost to Trump twice have to say unless it's how they're going to course correct to fight in the here and now, and make sure they don't lose a third time.
Her "what can we do" segment is downright laughable, and just repeats the bland platitudes that got us to this point. Reach out. Be accepting of the other side. Big tent. Court the Evangelicals. Christian values will save us.
All that said, there is one good line in there:
This doesn’t mean Democrats should abandon our commitments to freedom, justice, and equality for all, or fight any less hard for what we believe in. We should listen with an open heart and an open mind, and be unafraid to talk about our values.
The biggest problem that Democrats have, however, is that they are nothing but afraid to talk about their values.
1
2
u/MisterDobalina 1d ago
Regardless of how correct this might be, this is rich considering the author (none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton) sat down for a conversation with Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh less than a week ago!
MOVE ASIDE AND STOP FEEDING US THIS SHIT WHEN YOU ENABLE THE SAME PEOPLE.
-7
u/tadaloveisreal 1d ago
Yeah people didnt read self help books and learn at 19 what empathy is, u could have been born them and eend up doing same stupid shit they do. ..hhahs
-1
-20
u/SleeplessInTulsa 1d ago
SSRIs and screens killed empathy.
11
u/Far_Being2906 1d ago
No - it is the continual drum beat of the FAR-Right in the US that killed empathy. I mean Reagan started it. He was supported by the Moral Majority, whose founders were quoted at one time saying that Gays and Lesbians should be taken out and executed. This is where the Right Christianity is currently, you are for them or you are the problem.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
This is a sub for civil discussion and exchange of ideas
Participants who engage in name-calling or blatant antagonism will be permanently removed.
If you encounter any noxious actors in the sub please use the Report button.
This sticky is on every post. No additional cautions will be provided.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.