How the Left Is Using Empathy Overload to Shift American Opinion

The dramatic exploitation of empathy is the most lethal weapon currently in the Left’s arsenal. They have learned that playing on feelings is an effective way to gain control over the public. They highlight images of suffering, often skewing or presuming facts not present to stir hearts and change minds.

Though this tactic is center stage right now, it’s not new. Democrats, politicians, teachers, and officials, along with a compliant mainstream media, have been manipulating the American people for years. Even decades. And, if we’re not careful, it’s easy to fall prey to the façade of propped-up causes and victim status.

A strong example is what happened during the COVID pandemic. Remember the toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages, forced closures, and restrictions? Freedom-loving Americans were caught off guard. CNN ran a death count ticker. The way they leveraged that global emergency to get most Americans onboard was by playing the empathy card.

Politicians, community leaders, late-night TV hosts, and the mainstream media convinced many of us to comply with forced vaccinations and masking by suggesting that we would kill our grandparents if we rebelled. That removed the pressure to consider the science – because really, don’t you care about your grandma? Our neighbors and communities were weaponized, holding one another hostage with social pressure to comply. We now know it wasn’t true, but empathy, in many ways, won the day.

Empathy for Women

The pro-abortion crowd has played the empathy card for decades. Think of it. You are taking away a woman’s right to her own bodily autonomy by forcing her to carry this parasitic clump of cells. Problematic with this argument was – science to start with, along with the precious little one who was denied a share of that empathy. The baby dies, and the pro-choicers somehow call it compassionate.  

When empathy is stilted and fake, used to manipulate public opinion, you’d think people would see through it. This strategy, central to leftist philosophy, attempts to falsely claim the highest moral ground.  

Thankfully, it doesn’t always work, and the public sees through it. Take men in women’s sports. Try as they might, it’s been an uphill climb to convince logical Americans on both sides of the aisle that it makes sense to have men (who claim womanhood) crush biological girls and women in athletic contests. It’s an 80/20 issue with the vast majority seeing the truth, I suppose the 20% are just hell-bent on their far-left LGBTQ stance – logic notwithstanding.

American Christian commentator and host of the Blaze Media podcast, Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey, authored an excellent book explaining this left-wing phenomenon. Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.

“Empathy is powerful, but it is not always positive,” Stuckey explains. “In fact, empathy can be toxic…it blinds you to both reality and morality… It has you focus so much on the feelings of one person on one side of the moral equation, so that you ignore the other person on the other side of the moral equation.”¹

She makes sense. A manipulative and politically driven empathy asks you to limit your compassion to:

A young woman with an unplanned pregnancy
–  ignoring the plight of the little soul she carries, who faces death

The career criminal, deprived of parental guidance during their youth
– forgetting the plight of his victims

The suffering Palestinian, victimized in the war with Israel
– denying what caused it, the slaughter of 1200 Israeli citizens and the kidnapping of 250

An illegal alien facing deportation
– while failing to consider those who mourn loved ones lost to criminals here illegally

A transgender-identifying man (living “as” a woman)
– turning a blind eye to women who have lost rights to women’s sports and spaces.

The mom, protesting policies in her city, was killed by law enforcement
– Not considering the threat to the ICE officer who acted in self-defense as her car rammed him.

As Stuckey points out, there are two sides to these moral equations, and the progressive strategy is to exclusively consider their politically preferred victim without acknowledging the suffering of victims on the other side.

There are many victims of this twisting of the truth – and the outright lies. One of those victims is truth itself.

Empathy Minus Truth

Naturally, we feel for others.

We hurt when those we love hurt, and when we hear of tragic situations on the news, like a girl randomly murdered on a subway, or the loss of an entire family in a plane crash. Internationally, we are moved by thousands of slaughtered Christians in Nigeria and the death of protesters in Iran.

Sadly, there is no shortage of difficult stories we hear every day. Feeling for, praying for, and even reaching out with some form of support is part of being human, compassionate, and American.

When truth is denied – or missing in half-reported, biased newscasts and podcasts, it makes empathy counterfeit.

It’s a crime that parents were told that if they didn’t affirm a child’s delusion of being born in the wrong body, they would suffer that son or daughter’s suicide. It was a lie to tug on the heartstrings of family members and anyone who believed that transgender ideology was bad for kids. It was a manipulation that attempted to push public opinion further towards embracing LGBTQ in every area of life. That one has begun to backfire (thank God) as the empathy illusion crumbles amid lawsuits from mutilated young people that have begun to hit the courts – and cost perpetrators big bucks! Now they are scattering like rats on a sinking ship. What it offered in empathy, it lacked in truth, science, and morality.

The problem comes when we are pressured to feel empathy without context or the benefit of unfiltered truth.

It’s been reported ad nauseam that there are five-year-old children out there being detained and harmed by ICE officers. The problem is, it’s not true. Little kids aren’t being incarcerated – rather, they are being safeguarded by the systemic high standard of protection for children in our law enforcement and legal system. These fake news stories are sensationalized, scandal-mongering efforts to create a narrative that simply isn’t true. Context is removed, and truth is squishy at best.

Incidentally, when a parent is arrested for any crime in America, their children are naturally separated from them as the perpetrator, mom or dad, is taken into custody. The little ones are protected and cared for. So, any headline that crows about children separated from parents should be weighed against truth – and of course, context.

It’s perfectly normal to feel for illegal aliens in our nation, especially families who are facing deportation. The thought of losing the opportunity to be in America is a tragic result of President Biden’s implied promise through open borders, as he illegally allowed millions to flood our towns and cities. It wasn’t kind or compassionate as the Left might claim. They tend to forget the thousands who were raped on the path to the border – some lost their lives. While others, 300,000 children, were lost, many trafficked to be exploited sexually or for slave labor. So, the empathetic Left should feel deeply shamed for what their party did to the nation – and to the immigrants who were purposefully misled.

Empathy as a Smokescreen

Sometimes empathy can be used as a smokescreen or distraction.

I give you Minneapolis.

Remember the “Quality Learing Center.” At least 9 billion dollars has been stolen from the American taxpayer as politicians and state officials allegedly turned a blind eye to fake businesses, like the daycare mentioned above, which, besides its obvious spelling issues, also may not have had children. It took in almost 8 million over the last few years and represents just one of the many fraudulent enterprises uncovered in recent weeks.

Seems a little too coincidental that as that massive fraud against the American people is uncovered in Minneapolis, suddenly the empathy train rolls into town, taking all attention off this massive scandal – moving it instead to the victim/oppressor narrative.

Conveniently, protesters took to the streets with professionally printed signs and strategies. Minneapolis told its own police force to stand down as ICE officers faced dangers as they bravely fulfilled their duty, with wandering mobs attempting to thwart every effort. Suddenly, the media had something else to talk about. And did they ever!

They claim empathy for the “victims” of ICE officers – while ignoring the fact that they are conducting legal enforcement, have removed criminals of all kinds, including pedophiles. The empathy doesn’t extend to those young victims, however.

So, what happened to the massive scandal? The smokescreen might have taken America’s eyes off of it, in favor of canonizing the woman who died attempting to run over an ICE officer. It’s worth noting that she may not have intended to ram him; still, the self-defense he enacted seems understandable -albeit tragic.

Stay tuned, though. The fraud investigations aren’t over, and more arrests and prosecutions surely lie ahead.

Don’t Be Fooled

Love people, and also love truth. Be brave enough to weigh facts and refuse to embrace half-baked accusations lacking veracity and context.

Allie Beth Stucky explains this better than we possibly could. Here’s a short passage from the introduction to Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion:

“Christians are called to love, not just empathy. While empathy may help us love, it is not love itself. Empathy feels pain, but love always “rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6). We must seek and speak the truth in love. (Eph. 4:15)…We look to His Word – not our feelings – as our guide in all things, including the hot-button cultural and political issues of our day.

As we’ll see again and again, progressive positions are often – if not always – untruthful and unbiblical and are, therefore, also unloving. They sound good and often begin with good intentions, but they obscure the entire truth, convincing people to vote for policies – and embrace lifestyles – that are ultimately destructive.”²

Podcast Note: We loved our conversation with Representative Erin Houchin — a devoted mom and patriot serving the people of Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives. She opens up about the challenges and joys of balancing motherhood with public service, and what it means to lead both at home and in Washington

¹ facebook.com (Allie Beth Stuckey reel)

² Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion

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