Reflecting on MAGA's Indifference to Human Suffering

MAGA’s Indifference to Human Suffering – As we all work to dig ourselves out of the MAGA era, there is one piece of it all that we need to really confront, and work through – the extraordinary indifference to human suffering we’ve seen during the Trump years.  It can be found again and again – young kids fleeing violence turned away at the border, hundreds of thousands of unnecessary COVID deaths, the unceasing ravages of gun violence, stripping tens of millions of Americans of health insurance with no backstop, months long delays and party wide opposition to getting COVID related economic relief to struggling American families while repeatedly cutting the taxes of the wealthiest among us, denying people water who are forced to wait for hours just to vote…..what happened here?

The obvious concern, for those who have studied history, is dehumanization/loss of empathy/scapegoating is what leads societies to commit atrocities against even its fellow citizens.  We’ve written extensively about the post-Trump GOP’s need to take on off ramp from the dangers of MAGA, and perhaps a starting place is for “compassionate conservatism” to find a way back into the national conversation.  The extremism which has overtaken the GOP remains an extraordinary danger, and all of us have to resist the natural tendency to minimize, look away.