Lack of Empathy, Musk, and Trump's heroine, Ayn Rand [View all]

Opinion by Thom Hartmann (warning: somewhat graphic content)

Back in the days when I was rostered by the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist and ran a residential treatment facility for severely abused children, one of the things I was painfully aware of was the lack of empathy (the ability to experience or identify with the feelings of others) displayed by psychopaths.

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And this embrace of psychopathy isn’t something new for Republicans; their disdain for empathy has deep roots that reach back a half-century or more.

Most recently, this broke into public consciousness when Elon Musk trash-talked empathy in an interview with Joe Rogan:

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization which is the empathy response. I think empathy is good, but you need to think it through, and not just be programmed like a robot.”

The “they” who are “exploiting” the “bug” of empathy are, of course, Democrats who believe one of the jobs of government is to provide for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And average Americans who think we should help the helpless, feed the hungry, heal the sick, house the homeless, provide a safety net for our elders, and care for and educate our children.

More about Rand's influence on the Republican party and DJT:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-the-republican-war-on-empathy-turned-america-into-a-playground-for-sociopaths-opinion/ar-AA1BTwgE