America’s Far Right’s Attack on Empathy

The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is admirable right?

But if your shoes are planted in conservative ideology, you might not take them off and try on another pair.

The U.S.’ Catholic conservative movement has found itself an eighth deadly sin… and it is not being “woke,” it’s “toxic empathy.”

Toxic empathy is the idea that compassion leads to progressive policies, guided by feeling rather than control, which weaken society.

This idea is outlined in Allie Beth Stuckey’s book “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.” She explains that phrases like “love is love,” “no human is illegal,” or “abortion is healthcare,” are mantras the left uses to manipulate people into adopting progressive policies. For her, toxic empathy is a terrible weakness with which you believe LGBTQ individuals should have rights, that children should not be torn away from their parents in mass deportations, or that a woman should have autonomy over her own body.

Elon Musk stated on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” This is the logic used to justify drastic cuts to U.S. government spending, denying millions of people Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). For Republicans, these cuts are necessary to restore government efficiency and eliminate “wasteful” government spending. They contend that progressives allowed this overspending because they regarded citizens’ feelings above orderly governing.

Joe Rigney, a pastor and theology fellow, expresses this sentiment in his book, “The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits” where he writes, “compassion for refugees and ‘kids in cages’ is used to open the border to millions of able-bodied young men.”

But this rejection of empathy does not just allow them to deny progressive policies, but justify conservative ones too. By seeing empathy as a misguided way of making policy, they can defend themselves against the evident suffering the current administration’s policies cause.

By discrediting the idea of empathy, Trump can say that the suffering of others may well exist – it’s just irrelevant. Especially for those outside US borders. All you need is to hear about his “real estate plans” for the Gaza Strip. Genocide for him is another power-grabbing opportunity. During a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he stated, “they took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace.” Trump’s foreign policy, like his domestic policy, is motivated by deliberate apathy.

But how did an ideology, so rooted in Christianity, come to reject empathy so much? There is no shortage of Bible verses preaching empathy.

“Corinthians 12:26: If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

“Matthew 7:12: So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

These verses are being outright rejected by many conservative Christian spokespeople. As Pastor Josh McPherson said, “Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary… Empathy will align you with hell.”

Conservatives have found a way to twist Christian values to meet their own ends. In a Fox News interview, Vice President JD Vance stated, “You love your family, .. then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”

After receiving backlash, Vance stated on X, “Just google ‘ordo amoris.’ ‘Ordo amoris’ is a Medieval Catholic concept which translates to ‘order of love.’ This idea was explored by St Augustine, who proposes that rather than loving everyone equally, you must place special emphasis on those closest to you.

Conservatives paint a narrative that the left has more compassion for immigrants than they do for American citizens. They view empathy as something hierarchized, where you can only sympathize with so many. Thus, they emphasize the necessity for American First policies, which place American citizens’s interests over the interests of other nations.

St Thomas Aquinas also explored the concept of “Ordo Amoris” in his book “Summa Theologica.” He, however, states “in certain cases one ought to succor a stranger, in extreme necessity, rather than one’s own father, if he is not in such urgent need.” This is something JD Vance seemingly ignored.

Conservatives’ attack on empathy is about justifying cruelty by rejecting feeling. It portrays government and policymaking as something stern, unfeeling, and rigid. Progressive policies, motivated by care or sympathy, are seen as the very things weakening America.

But empathy is not a hierarchized feeling. It is not limited. Giving your empathy to one person doesn’t mean you have less empathy to give to another. It is an abundant ability to understand someone’s perspectives, to acknowledge their experiences, and to provide the help they require.