Why the MAGA movement fears empathy

When Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan's show last week, he said that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." He also referred to empathy as civilizational suicide. 

But Musk isn't the only one who sees empathy as a threat. There is a whole movement among Christian nationalists warning of the dangers of empathy. For example, Conservative Christian commentator Allie Beth Stuckey recently published a book titled Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. A few months later, Joe Rigney published one titled The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits. Several other Christian nationalists have joined the fray, including Josh McPherson, Doug Wilson, Joel Webbon, and James White.

The attacks on empathy were perhaps best captured by how these folks responded to Bishop Mariann Budde's call for mercy towards those who are afraid. Here's the author of that book about "toxic empathy."

Whoa! So for these folks, showing mercy to those who are afraid isn't just against God's word - it's satanic. I have no idea what Bible she's reading, but whenever folks get that riled up, I start wondering what they're afraid of. Here's a list of what comes to mind:

Conversation 

Empathy emerges when we engage deeply in conversation - often with those who disagree with us or have different life experiences. As Julian Sanchez pointed out years ago, that kind of conversation bursts MAGA's epistemic bubble (emphasis mine).

This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile…If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely…And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation.

Feminization 

As we see in Stuckey's tweet above, she expects this kind of thing from a female Episcopalian priest. Joe Rigney was more explicit. Here's what he wrote:

Budde’s attempt to “speak truth to power” is a reminder that feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation and victimhood that has plagued us in the era of wokeness. And for Christians, it’s a reminder of how destructive the feminist cancer is in the Church.

Josh McPherson, Pastor of Grace City Church in Wenatchee, Washington and founder of Stronger Man Nation, said that "empathy is dangerous, empathy is toxic, empathy will align you with Hell." He also said that "women are especially vulnerable" to empathy, and that husbands should control who their wives are friends with.

It is clear that, for these folks, empathy threatens the status quo of patriarchy. 

Vulnerability/Uncertainty

Here's what Shane Moe, a licensed marriage and family counselor, said about the anti-empathy crowd:

Yes, allowing ourselves to experience empathy can make us more vulnerable to (gasp!) the influence of those who think differently than we do. And if one lives in a perpetual state of spiritual hypervigilance or fear of potentially being wrong or corrupted — and, thus, with deep-seated existential anxiety surrounding theological/ideological difference and change — one might consequently come to see empathy as a threat.

Those who have a "deep-seated existential anxiety" about difference and change must protect their vulnerability by maintaining certainty. All doubt must be eradicated. 

I am reminded that, in the film Conclave, Cardinal Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) says that "There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others - certainty....Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance."

Unity

One of the lessons we can learn from history is that authoritarian regimes require people to embrace an us vs them narrative about an enemy that must be punished and/or annihilated. That's why Trump/Vance keep talking about "the enemy within." The specifics are malleable and can be anyone they feel like targeting at the moment. Empathy for those targets is, therefore, a huge threat. 

In 2008, Barack Obama gave a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Here is the theme of his remarks:

“Unity is the great need of the hour.” That’s what Dr. King said. It is the great need of this hour as well, not because it sounds pleasant, not because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exits in this country.

I’m not talking about the budget deficit. I’m not talking about the trade deficit. Talking about the moral deficit in this country. I’m talking about an empathy deficit, the inability to recognize ourselves in one another, to understand that we are our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper, that in the words of Dr. King, “We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.”

To the extent that we believe that we are our bother's/sister's keeper, we would unify against the forces that are tearing us apart.

That is why MAGA is referring to empathy as civilizational suicide, toxic, and a sin. They are scared to death of real conversation, women, vulnerability, and unity because all of those things will bring down the edifice of cruelty they are in the midst of building. Isn't it a pity. Isn't it a shame!