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MAGA is waging war on empathy.
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The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.
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Compassion is great for dealing with infants, but it's not a great doctrine to be building a political system on.
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Beware of the empathy mongers, because what you will hear over and over again is the anecdote that is supposed to pull on your heartstrings and make you feel that you are a bad and heartless person if you take the conservative side.
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Some people, some very powerful people, have decided empathy is bad.
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It's wrong, it's evil, it's toxic, it's un-American, it's un-Christian.
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So they go on talk shows to preach the gospel of hatred and they take issue with the actual words of Jesus, such as loving your neighbor.
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That's too soft, apparently.
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And they've actually made a lot of money doing this.
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But is empathy actually bad?
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No, that's insane because empathy is what makes a society work.
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It's how humans live together without killing each other.
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Empathy is how we teach our toddlers to share, and it turns out empathy also makes good policy and good religion, too.
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So, we on the Christian left are taking empathy back.
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Join me, religion journalist Liz Charlotte Grant, and my co-host Jeremy Alder, a comedian and social worker, on our new podcast that we're calling Empathy Revolt.
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Every week we're joined by a guest, authors, activists, comedians, journalists, faith leaders, and scholars, basically anyone who's a friend of the Christian left, and we'll be talking about one political story and one religious story from the week's news.
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With every conversation, we're raising a middle finger to the Christian nationalists in the White House as we try our damnedest to make empathy great again.
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Listen to Empathy Revolt wherever you get podcasts starting Wednesday, September 30th from the Shifting Culture Network.