There’s a scene from a movie I can’t get out of my head.
It’s from a 2021 film called “Don’t Look Up,” not my idea of a cinematic classic. It’s a dark comedy about the end of the world, an allegory intended to skewer those who are in denial about climate change, but in this film people are in denial about a comet that’s about to hit the earth.
The movie is equal parts funny and preachy, but the ending is poignant. The main characters of the film are gathered around a dinner table, eating one last meal as they face the end. They’re trying to have a casual conversation as the table starts to rattle.
In that moment — as we watch images of the beauty of earth flashing in front of us — the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio interrupts the small talk with these words:
“The thing of it is, we really did have everything, didn’t we?”
I don’t want to compare the second Trump term to a comet hitting the earth (or maybe I do), but it is absolutely true that we often can’t grasp what we had until we no longer have it. Tragedy and loss adjust our frame, and the disputes and arguments that once seemed so urgent can pale in comparison to new and terrible realities.
Now let’s talk about empathy.
A year ago this month, I wrote a newsletter warning about a new trend on the MAGA Christian right. Christian theologians and influencers had begun warning about the “sin of empathy” or “toxic empathy.”
In books, essays, podcasts and speeches, prominent Christian influencers, ministers and theologians sounded the alarm that secular progressives were leading Christians astray by appealing to their emotions at the expense of their reason.
The steel man version of their case goes like this:
Progressives have turned Christians’ soft hearts against hard truths. Progressives have persuaded all too many Christians that the suffering of, say, undocumented immigrants or women facing unwanted pregnancies should override their concerns about the economic and social costs of large-scale immigration, or their compassion for victims of crimes committed by immigrants, or their concerns about the plight of the unborn child.
Sometimes, as the argument goes, you have to do tough, hard things. That means mass deportation. That means cutting off aid to the poor and vulnerable in the developing world. That means ending gay marriage even if it breaks up families. And that means the strictest possible pro-life laws, even when the life or physical health of the mother might be at stake, or sending mothers to jail for aborting their child.
And so, Christians, you have to steel yourselves to stand up for truth and righteousness, and accept the condemnation of a world that will call you cruel.
As with many bad ideas, the attack on empathy is rooted in something real. Partisans tend to be terrible at showing the slightest empathy for “them,” the people on the other side.
Immigration activists can be very good at highlighting the plight of migrants, for example, while ignoring or paying little attention to the costs of uncontrolled migration.
Pro-choice activists are very effective at highlighting the difficulties facing pregnant women while downplaying the humanity of the baby emerging in the womb.
During the pandemic, I was shocked at the lack of concern or outright mockery in some quarters for the deaths of unvaccinated Americans.
The converse is true as well. Immigration restrictionists are very good at highlighting the costs of mass migration — including the victims of violence committed by immigrants — without demonstrating much concern at all for the immigrants themselves.
And while many pro-life activists care deeply for mother and child, that sentiment isn’t universal. A Republican candidate for governor in Tennessee, for example, has let the world know that he’s open to the idea of imposing the death penalty on women who get abortions.
Arguments about the Middle East are sometimes the worst of all — it can be difficult to find anyone who prioritizes every life at stake in the seemingly endless wars between Israel and its foes.
The problem in those cases isn’t with empathy, which is a vital human virtue, but rather in its selective application. Just as we wouldn’t call love a sin because we might be stingy in our love, empathy isn’t a sin because its application is incomplete.
Or, put another way, our problem isn’t with too much empathy, but too little. We’re unwilling to place ourselves in other people’s shoes, to try to understand who they are and what their lives are like.
It’s hard to talk about this issue without recognizing a fundamental truth of the moment: The attack on empathy would have gained very little traction in the church if Donald Trump weren’t president. He delights in vengeance, and he owes his presidency to the evangelical church.
I’ve shared this statistic before, but if you look at 2024 exit polling, you’ll see that Trump won white evangelical and born-again voters by a 65-point margin, 82 percent to 17 percent. He lost everyone else by 18 points, 58 percent to 40 percent.
Given the sharp differences between Trump and every other Republican president of the modern era, in my experience evangelicals are desperate to to rationalize their support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents.
That’s exactly how empathy becomes a sin.
And because empathy is a sin, virtually any appeal to consider the suffering of Trump’s opponents becomes yet more proof that Christians are being manipulated, that their emotions are used against them.
Are you concerned about children who might die because we gratuitously and needlessly cut billions of dollars of foreign aid? That’s toxic empathy. Are you worried about the conditions in detention facilities where migrants are held by the thousands? That’s more toxic empathy. Are you shocked and appalled at ICE’s aggression in the streets? Well, then, you’re losing your moorings. Mass deportation was always going to be tough to watch. Stay strong. Don’t let empathy seep into your soul.
But this problem extends well beyond public policy into the fundamental cruelty and callousness of the culture of the new right. It is no coincidence that the attack on empathy correlates with an extraordinary rise in blatant racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia on the right.
Empathy stands as a firewall against bigotry. But it’s more than that — it can also free you from bigotry. Understanding another person’s experience (and imagining if it happened to you) softens our hearts and creates human connection.
A movement that still valued empathy would have the antibodies to resist the likes of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes. It would react with revulsion when it sees the administration smear dead Americans like Alex Pretti and Renee Good with obvious lies, plunging their families into deeper distress.
And a movement that had a trace of empathy left would expel a man like Representative Randy Fine, who tweeted on Sunday, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Fine says he was responding to a tweet by a Palestinian Muslim activist named Nerdeen Kiswani, who had said, “Finally, NYC is coming to Islam. Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets. Like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.” For her part, Kiswani says the post was satire, more of a quip about the prevalence of dog waste on New York streets.
There is zero prospect that any American government will ban owning dogs or keeping them inside. None. It’s laughable to even think so. But never let it be said that MAGA will miss a chance to be cruel — and so a Republican member of Congress openly declares that he prefers animals to people, if those people are Muslim.
I never thought it would be Christians who led the attack on fundamental Christian values, but here we are. The Book of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet he did not sin.”
In Christian theology, Christ engaged in the ultimate act of empathy. He didn’t imagine what it would be like to live as a man — he became one.
Our own desire for empathy, for ourselves and our friends, is almost primal. There is a deep human need to feel truly seen.
In fact, one of the prime architects of the evangelical war on empathy, a podcaster and writer named Allie Beth Stuckey, covets empathy for her friends and allies. On Jan. 24, the day that federal agents killed Alex Pretti, Stuckey tweeted, “Dems are winning the media war in Minneapolis. Republicans have played decent defense, but we need more stories and images showing the professionalism and compassion of ICE and border patrol, as well as stories/images of the victims of illegal alien violence.”
What is this but a plea for empathy? Please, America, see us as we see ourselves.
Viewed through one lens, America before Trump had its share of problems. We were fighting long wars overseas, we were still dealing with the economic overhang of the Great Recession, and we faced the kind of sharp cultural conflicts that always arise when people of different faiths and different ideologies share the same national home.
Zoom out just a bit, and you could see our abundant national blessings. In an imperfect world, the United States was a very good place to be. The American experiment was working. Our nation was free. It was secure. It enjoyed immense prosperity and power. It afforded a degree of religious toleration and economic opportunity that was the envy of most of the world.
In other words, we really did have it all, didn’t we?
But then many in MAGA decided that cruelty was a virtue, decency a vice, and — worst of all — that empathy was a sin. Now we live in the harsh new world they made.
Some other things I did
My Sunday column was about the terrible scourge of Christian antisemitism and why Christian antisemitism requires a specifically Christian response:
Embracing the idea that the modern state of Israel is a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecies and therefore must be supported by the United States for theological reasons can lead us to dangerous places — to a belief, in essence, in permanent Israeli righteousness, no matter the nation’s conduct and no matter the character of its government.
But the opposite idea — that Christians have replaced the Jews in the eyes of God and there is no longer any special purpose for Jews in God’s plan — has its own profound dangers. It creates a sense of righteousness in religious persecution, and it has caused untold suffering throughout human history.
The better Christian view rejects both dangerous extremes, recognizes the incalculable dignity and worth of every human being, and is Zionist in the sense that it holds that one of history’s most persecuted groups deserves a national home.
And since Christians persecuted Jews so viciously in the past (and some still do), we have a special responsibility to make amends, to repair the damage that the church has done. That begins by turning to the new Christian antisemites and shouting, “No!” Ancient hatreds born from ancient heresies have no place in the church today.
My Saturday round table with Jamelle Bouie and Michelle Cottle featured a discussion of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s very strange testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:
French: Yeah. I mean, the most telling moment was when she tried to stop questioning about Epstein, which was ostensibly the subject of the testimony, by saying the Dow was at 50,000.
Which is about as relevant as saying, “Why are we talking about Epstein when the Knicks won last night?” I mean, you know, it’s that kind of non sequitur. But that tells you more than anything, Michelle, who our audience is. Because who is always talking about the Dow, right? Who is always pointing at the Dow? That is the one external check that Trump pays attention to, is when the stock market crashes, and he will do things or stop doing things, and when it rises, he crows about it. So that tells you all of this was for the audience of one — and that’s Donald Trump.
And you know, one of the things I think the second Trump term is showing is that Trump is performing a function of “the great illuminator” of the true core of people. Because he really is putting in front of Pam Bondi: Hey, Pam, here is your job in one corner. And here in the other corner is reason, logic, morality, and decency. You have to give up all of those things. But if you do, you can continue to be the attorney general of the United States. And this is the test he’s putting in front of basically everyone in Republican politics right now.
Thanks for reading. You will soon start to get my columns emailed to you too.
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here.
Have feedback? Send me a note at [email protected].
You can also follow me on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).
The post The Year Empathy Died appeared first on New York Times.
