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Evangelicals and the Empathy Gap

Empathy is generally described as the ability to perceive another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience.  Most would believe empathy is something true devout Christians dedicated to Christ's social gospel should value and  favor.  Yet having followed evangelicals and the Christian Right - who continue to be the strongest and most loyal supporters - for more than three decades, the reality is that this segment of society rejects empathy towards others and cheers on the Felon's regime that exults in cruelty towards those it dislikes, dehumanizes millions of citizens,  and has green-lighted open racism and hatred towards those labeled as "other."  A new survey by Public Religion Research Institute confirms that evangelicals reject empathy more than any other religious grouping and in some cases describe empathy as "dangerous".  This rejection of empathy is in keeping with evangelicals and "conservative Christians" who view anything that might challenge or cause members to perhaps rethink beliefs as a threat to be stomped out.  In many instances, in my view, this far right "Christians" are the antithesis what what true Christians should be, a reality underscored by their blind allegiance to the Felon and his brutal regime.  A piece at Religion News looks at the survey findings:

A new survey from Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute has found a new dividing line among Americans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections: empathy.

According to a PRRI report released Tuesday (Oct. 20), Democrats (84%) and Independents (70%) are more likely than Republicans (53%) to see empathy as a benefit to society. Forty-three percent of Republicans see empathy as a danger if it leads society away from God.

The report, based on a survey of 5,200 adult Americans, also found that about two-thirds of Americans see President Trump as a potential threat to democracy, and some of the faith groups that supported the president in the 2024 elections are losing their faith in him.

While Americans are split over the issue of immigration, with Republicans and white evangelicals supporting the idea of mass deportation of people in the country without legal authorization — a view held by only a quarter of Americans overall — everyone agrees the economy is going in the wrong direction (76%).

And almost no one wants to repeal women’s right to vote — a topic that has become popularized by Doug Wilson, a spiritual adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The issue of empathy made headlines in January 2025, when Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde spoke during an interfaith prayer service at the Washington Cathedral on Inauguration Day about the need for mercy and empathy. President Trump and Vice President Vance were in the audience for the service.

It has also been a matter of growing public debate, said Robert Jones, founder and president of PRRI. Jones said researchers have been tracking the public conversation about empathy, which began among evangelicals with a blog post from conservative author Joe Rigney in 2019, and spread to influencers like Allie Beth Stuckey, who wrote the book “Toxic Empathy,” and Canadian professor Gad Saad, author of “Suicidal Empathy.” More mainstream evangelical voices, like Albert “Al” Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, have also expressed concerns about empathy.

That led PRRI to ask in this new survey if Americans see empathy as a benefit to society or a threat. Researchers found what Jones called a partisan “empathy gap” among Americans.

Religious groups were also split. At least two-thirds of most major religious groups said empathy “is a foundational moral value for a healthy society,” as did 83% of religiously unaffiliated Americans. White evangelicals were the least likely to name empathy as a foundational social value (42%), and more than half of white evangelicals (54%) said, “empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.”

By contrast, white Mainliners (73%) and white Catholics (66%), both of which, like white evangelicals, have supported Donald Trump in past elections, still see empathy as important.

“It tells you that this language has now become the majority view inside of white evangelical circles,” said Jones. “They really are on an island by themselves on this question.”

Among other findings, PRRI found that the GOP has lost ground with voters who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election. In 2024, just over half (51%) of Hispanic Protestants viewed the president favorably. That has dropped to 31% in 2026, according to PRRI. About half of White mainliners (48%) approve of the president, down from 57% last year. Half of white Catholics (49%) approve of the president, also down from 57% in 2025.

When PRRI asked Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 if their opinion of the president had changed for the better or the worse over the past two years, more than two-thirds (68%) said “for the worse.” Among Hispanic Protestants, 70% said their opinion of Trump had worsened since 2024.

Researchers also found that religious Americans are divided over the upcoming mid-term elections.

“Among those who are registered to vote and plan to vote, white evangelical Protestants (68%) and white Catholics (51%) are the only religious groups with majorities who would vote for the Republican candidate,” according to the report.

Hispanic Protestants (44%) and white Mainliners (43%) prefer Republicans to Democrats, but neither party has the support of a majority in those faith traditions, PRRI found.

“By contrast, strong majorities of Black Protestants (76%), the religiously unaffiliated (63%), other non-Christians (56%), Jewish Americans (52%), and Hispanic Catholics (48%) say they would vote for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate,” according to the report.

The survey found that immigration remains a dividing line among Americans. . . . . Overall, more than half of Americans (59%) support a path to citizenship, while a quarter (24%) support deporting immigrants in the country illegally.

According to the report, “Around seven in ten Hispanic Catholics (77%), Black Protestants (73%), Hispanic Protestants (70%), and unaffiliated Americans (68%) support allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens, followed by majorities of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (55%), members of other non-Christian religions (55%), white Catholics (54%), and Jewish Americans (54%).” . . . . evangelicals are split, with about half (48%) supporting deportation, while 44% support a path to citizenship.

Among the survey’s most provocative findings: More than half (57%) of Americans agreed Donald Trump is “a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” But a third agreed Trump is “a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.”

Researchers also asked a second question that has emerged among conservative evangelical influencers — the idea of repealing the 19^th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, who founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, the denomination to which Hegseth belongs, has promoted that view, saying every household should have only one vote — and that men should make that vote as leader of the household.

Most Americans (87%) opposed repealing the 19^th Amendment, PRRI found — and that view is consistent across religious groups, Jones told RNS in an interview.

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The Bill for Trumpism Is Coming Due

The Felon campaigned in 2024 promising to balance the federal budget and to eliminate the national debt by the end of his second term if re-elected. Like everything else that spews from the Felon's mouth, these were lies - surprise, surprise - and the Felon is causing the national debt to explode, in no small part to thanks to the ridiculously described "big beautiful bill" that lavished tax cuts on the very wealthy and slashed benefits to everyday Americans while throwing a few meager bread crumbs to a small percentage of the non-wealthy.  The soaring federal debt is driving up both the costs of federal borrowing to service the debt and, equally bad, driving up mortgage rates and interest rates in general.  Meanwhile, the Felon's illegal tariffs and trade wars  - and most significantly the Iran war - have caused gasoline diesel and consumer prices to soar.  Instead of "making America great again", the Felon has made the nation poorer, more economically isolated and caused former allies to plot futures less reliant on the USA.  Indeed, the damage being done must put a huge smile on Vladimir Putin's face.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at the bill coming due for the incompetence and wrong priorities of the Felon and his enablers. Here are highlights:

“BALANCED BUDGET!!! DJT” Donald Trump posted that promise on February 7, 2025, the 18th day of his current presidential term. During the 2024 campaign, he had promised even more: the elimination of the entire national debt in a single term of office.

Trump insisted that he could reach his budget goals without disagreeable spending cuts. At a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in July 2024, Trump pledged to make “not one penny” in cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He repeated that “not one penny” promise countless times through 2024, including in the Republican platform. Instead, he proposed eliminating deficits and debt with magic money from growth, from crypto, and—above all—from tariffs.

Basic budget math contradicted Trump’s fantasies. The United States imported about $3.3 trillion in goods in 2024. The budget deficit for that year was about $1.8 trillion. To imagine that tariffs could eliminate the budget deficit required believing that the Trump administration would impose a 55 percent tariff on all imports—including oil, natural gas, and electricity—and that consumers would pay this tariff without altering their buying behavior at all. That was all obviously absurd.

But there was a Plan B to balance the budget! Let Elon Musk do it! . . . . This adventure not only likely violated the Constitution but also almost certainly worsened the deficit. DOGE reduced the IRS auditing staff by nearly one-third. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the ensuing collapse in federal enforcement efforts will cost the Treasury more than $860 billion in revenue over the next decade.

Fast-forward to the present. The budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended on September 30 is Next year’s deficit is likely to be even bigger. about $2 trillion, or about $160 billion more than in Joe Biden’s last complete year as president.  . . . . On the current trajectory, total debt could reach $45 trillion by 2028. . . . an extra $10 trillion in debt is the cost of just four years of Trump’s fiscal recklessness.

Some highlights of how this record was achieved: In 2025, Trump and the Republican-led Congress passed a tax bill that made the 2017 tax cuts permanent—and added more tax reductions on top of them. The tax legislation will directly reduce government revenues by $4.5 trillion over the coming decade.

Trump’s biggest budget idea was to substitute tariffs for other government revenue sources. This plan proved not only economically unrealistic but also illegal. Tariffs are taxes, and taxes must be voted for by Congress, according to the Constitution. . . . The Supreme Court confirmed this basic rule in February 2026. . . . The situation will continue to get worse.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced income taxes on Social Security benefits, and Trump’s inflation has driven increases in Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment. The Social Security trust fund is now projected to be exhausted in 2032, forcing either big tax increases or big benefit cuts.

An early warning that Trump’s monetary promises should not be trusted came at that same 2024 St. Cloud rally where Trump promised no cuts to Social Security, when Trump stiffed the town with $209,000 in event fees. As the midterm elections near, Trump has accused the Democrats of threatening the country’s economy with socialism and communism. Yet his administration has managed to wreck the country’s finances worse than any government in U.S. history, without the excuse of an economic crisis or a successful major war. October 1 marked the start of America’s fiscal new year. A new Congress will face a new fiscal reality.

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A Blue Wave Will Not End America's Oligarch Problem

The mid-term election is less than two weeks away - I have already voted early - and the amounts of money being donated by the super wealthy, including Elon Musk who I view as a menace to democracy, to mostly Republican candidates is off the charts.  These billionaires and ultra-wealthy donors are in effect trying to buy candidates and the election, demonstrating the flawed ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which insanely held that corporations are "persons" with free speech rights, including the right to spend enormous amounts of money in elections. That ruling needs to be reversed, although that would nor rein in malevolent actors like Musk.  With luck - and assuming the Felon does not try to declare martial law or other illegal election interference - a blue wave will sweep Republicans from control of both houses of Congress and some measures can be taken to rein in the Felon's lawlessness and blatantly corrupt efforts to enrich himself, his slimy family members, and the wealthy willing to pay what amount to bribes in pay to play free for all.  Unfortunately, as a piece in The New Republic lays out, a blue wave will likely not be enough to stop billionaires and oligarchs from attempting to buy elections. Here are article highlights:

The candidates favored by billionaires and industry backers almost certainly won’t do as well in the midterms as they did two years ago, when the favorites of Elon Musk and other superrich individuals won numerous races, including the presidency. But big money is still warping American elections, putting weak candidates on equal financial footing with stronger ones, making politicians from both parties beholden to the rich instead of their constituents, and blocking more populist policies. There is little doubt that Democratic victories this fall will put the United States on a better footing, but our democracy ultimately can’t thrive if a class of oligarchs can use their wealth to dominate the political system.

Judicial rulings, mostly notably the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, have eliminated most restrictions on campaign spending by the wealthy and corporations. Each subsequent election cycle since, companies and billionaires have upped their political involvement, in terms of both raw dollars and the aggressiveness of their efforts. The 2024 cycle represented something of an inflection point. About 20 percent of campaign donations to candidates and political donations, more than $3 billion in total, came from billionaires and their immediate family members, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Six individuals or families donated more than $100 million, led by Elon Musk, who spent an estimated $290 million. He funded a get-out-the vote operation in swing states, the kind of organization usually built by candidates or political parties.

All six of those families backed Republican candidates. That spending helped the GOP win the House, Senate, and presidency.

Meanwhile, numerous companies funded super PACs and other campaign committees, usually to defeat Democratic candidates and boost Republicans. Perhaps the most notable was the cryptocurrency industry, which donated more than $40 million to a super PAC to oust a critic of the industry, then-Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio.

This year, billionaires have already donated at least $1.7 billion. Of that, $1.2 billion (69 percent) has gone to help Republican candidates, according to a report from Americans for Tax Fairness. Musk alone has pumped in at least $366 million, according to the Times. Cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, Big Tech, and online betting companies have spent at least $294 million this cycle, according to Public Citizen.

Unless something very surprising happens, all of that spending won’t deliver the government that the rich and big corporations want. Democrats will almost certainly win the House and reduce the GOP ranks at the state level. They may win both houses on Capitol Hill and trifectas in states where a majority of Americans live.

But even if we have a blue wave, the corporate and billionaire spending will have mattered. How? First of all, this spending is almost certainly limiting Republican losses. Democratic candidates in House and Senate races are vastly outraising their GOP opponents.

Such fundraising advantages could lead to Democratic candidates running vastly more television ads and having much better get-out-the-vote operations than their Republican rivals. But conservative-leaning billionaires and corporations are pumping tens of millions of dollars into helping these Republican candidates, essentially leveling the playing field, as my colleague Emma Janssen explained in a piece Tuesday.

Billionaire spending can’t prevent a Democratic wave, but can limit its extent. Much of this billionaire and corporate spending is in traditionally red districts and states like Texas and Iowa, as polls suggest that Democrats could win this year in places they usually don’t. . . . .If Republicans keep control of the Senate and/or Democrats win a fairly narrow majority (220–229 seats) in the House, this billionaire and corporate spending will have been a huge asset to them.

And that’s not just an anti-Democratic story but an antidemocratic one, as well. The concept of “one person, one vote” doesn’t really exist when some individuals donate more money to campaigns than thousands or even hundreds of thousands of other Americans combined. Our campaign finance system has never been particularly democratic. But it’s more democratic for a candidate to raise $30 million from 30,000 or 300,000 people than just one.

In addition, the staggering spending by Musk and other billionaires essentially guarantees that the politicians who win with their financial backing will do their bidding in office.

And it’s not just Republicans who are beholden to the superrich. Democrats are accepting huge sums from the rich too. Democrats correctly argue that they shouldn’t unilaterally disarm and allow GOP candidates to get massive spending from conservative-leaning billionaires while liberal-leaning billionaires remain on the sidelines. And unlike in federal races, Democratic hopefuls in gubernatorial and state legislative contests are often being vastly outspent by their GOP rivals. So in the last few weeks, Democratic operatives and campaign operatives have urged big donors to get more involved—and they have.

Wealthy Democrats like Bloomberg are wary of the party embracing more populist policies, such as wealth taxes and more stringent regulation of big companies. Democratic candidates and the party overall are gun-shy about adopting progressive economic views in part because they know it will cost them financial support from big donors and therefore make it harder for them to win elections. . . . . It is both a democracy problem and an electoral one (voters support populist economic policies) that liberal billionaires can effectively veto progressive policy and personnel.

But their veto powers are surprisingly vast. Labor activists got a one-time 5 percent tax on the wealth of billionaires on the ballot in California. Whatever your views on the proposal itself, the debate over this policy shows the democracy problem caused by billionaires. With massive donations from the superrich, the opposition to the wealth tax has raised more than $330 million to convince Californians to oppose Proposition 40. The pro–wealth tax side has raised $33 million. That’s not a fair debate about the merits of a wealth tax—it’s the rich drowning out the message of their opponents.

Progressive ballot initiatives across the country nearly always have to overcome opposition from the superwealthy. And that’s distressing because ballot initiatives are often the only path to populist economic policies in red states and even blue ones. State legislators and governors often won’t advance policies that their donors don’t like. But as California is showing, the superrich can block ballot initiatives too.

The good news is that hundreds of millions of dollars from Elon Musk and other conservative billionaires probably won’t prevent an anti-Trump backlash. The bad news is that billionaires and big corporations still have a hold, and often a veto, in both parties. America can have an oligarchy or a democracy—but not both. When Democrats next have national power, they must restrict the political power of billionaires, even including the so-called liberal ones that help put them in power.

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