Hillary Clinton has launched a sweeping new attack on the MAGA movement, accusing it of elevating savagery into a moral virtue and turning the belief that compassion is weak and cruelty is strong into an article of MAGA faith and a rallying cry for Christian nationalism.
Her 6,000-word essay, MAGAs War on Empathy, casts recent federal actions in Minnesota as a watershed moment that supposedly exposes what she calls a deeper moral collapse within President Donald Trumps supporters, as reported by Mediaite. Clintons framing reflects a familiar pattern from the left: pathologizing conservative voters and Christian constituencies while presenting progressive moral judgments as neutral and objective.
Clinton opened by recounting her reaction to video footage of the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, likening him to the good Samaritan from Scripture. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves and help those in need, she wrote, before adding, Not in Donald Trumps America.
She argued that such incidents show fear, not justice or public safety, has become the central aim of federal enforcement under the current administration. In her words, Trump and his allies believe that the more inhumane the treatment, the more likely it is to spread fear. Thats the goal of surging heavily armed federal forces into blue states such as Minnesota and Maine street theater of the most dangerous kind.
For Clinton, this is not an aberration but the essence of the movement she opposes. The savagery is a feature, not a bug, she asserted, portraying millions of Americans who support President Trump as morally corrupted by a culture of cruelty.
The essays central thrust moves beyond Minnesota to a broader indictment of religious conservatives and Christian influencers. Clinton claimed that the glorification of cruelty and rejection of compassion she sees in Trump-era policies resonates most strongly with a cadre of hard-right Christian influencers whom she accuses of waging a war on empathy.
She singled out one podcaster who labeled empathy toxic empathy in a sermon, a phrase she uses to suggest that conservative Christians are redefining virtue itself. Trumps personal immorality and his administrations cruelty, Clinton wrote, marginalizes mainstream religious leaders who espouse traditional values and threatens to pave the way for an extreme vision of Christian nationalism that seeks to replace democracy with theocracy in America.
Clinton insisted this alleged ideology is no longer confined to the fringes, pointing to its supposed reach among elected officials and naming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseths church leader Douglas Wilson. She then broadened her critique into a direct character attack on President Trump, declaring that she does not regard him as a man of faith and adding, His corruption isnt just a personal matter it taints everything he touches, including his Christian supporters.
In a move aimed at reassuring moderate readers, Clinton contrasted Trump with earlier Republican leaders, praising former President George W. Bush for advancing compassionate conservatism, even as she reiterated her disagreements with his policies. She also mounted a philosophical defense of empathy itself, arguing it does not overwhelm our critical thinking but opens our eyes to moral complexity, while acknowledging her own struggle with empathy in light of her 2016 remark about a basket of deplorables.
Clinton maintained that comment as a justified condemnation of hatred and bigotry, yet now couches it in language about shared humanity, writing, We can see the humanity in even the worst of our fellow human beings and still fiercely resist tyranny. Her essay closes with a moral prescription that doubles as a political message to the left: To be strong, she concluded, we need more empathy, not less.
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