Of the qualities the American right has come to despise in the left, empathy is the most puzzling. Boy, do they hate it. A stream of books in recent years has supplemented constant podcast and social-media chatter about what is seen as nothing less than, well, a sin. In 2025 „Leadership and the Sin of Empathy”, by Joe Rigney, came hot on the heels of the previous year’s bestselling „Toxic Empathy”, by Allie Beth Stuckey. This May brought „Suicidal Empathy”, an instant and persistent bestseller by Gad Saad, a professor of marketing and a podcaster. Mr Saad’s sales have no doubt been boosted by the plug on his cover from Elon Musk, who warns that „Western civilisation is doomed” unless Mr Saad’s message is heeded and „actions are taken that are hard but necessary for survival”.
The previous Republican president, George W. Bush, called himself a „compassionate conservative”, but that’s not why this horror of empathy is puzzling; condemning empathy is one more way for today’s Republicans to erase him. It is puzzling instead because a surfeit of understanding of the needs of others would seem a poor explanation for Democrats’ dismal approval ratings, even as Donald Trump alienates most Americans by enriching himself, gilding Washington and waging war without a strategy.
