On the Importance of Empathy
People who don't understand and care about the experiences of others are less successful in life and politics and organizations should recruit on empathy for greater success.
Dear Friends,
America is undergoing a great American experiment in the kind of right-wing populism that Murray Rothbard envisioned, where angry bigots and old-school conservatives and Dixiecrats would join forces with conservatives and libertarians to coalesce behind a candidate. By joining these small groups of fringe voters together under one banner, they would win the Presidency and defeat the elites and the establishment that is holding you down.
Donald Trump did it. He won the 2016 election with that kind of coalition, defeating a Democratic candidate that was the epitome of elite establishment, the wife of a former President, Senator, and Secretary of State. Also, she was a woman who a lot of women didn’t like.
That breakthrough for a coalition that included a lot of sketchy alt-right and white nationalist figures and groups caused those groups to become much more public and much more violent. Heather Heyer’s murder at the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, with the chants of “Jews will not replace us” as the warm up act for driving a car into a crowd of innocent people.
Not a good day.
But the backlash against that hate was fast and furious. And it didn’t stop.
The Trump administration had to cut some of the more extreme figures and groups loose, relegating them to the Q-Anon group chats and Discord servers, to hatch weird plans and complain about the Deep State.
The 2018 elections went poorly for the GOP.
So did 2020.
So did 2022.
So did nearly every special election since the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision, unleashing restrictive abortion laws around the country that are resulting in children being forced to have their rapist’s baby unless they can be brought out of state for medical care.
The implementation of the policy goal to overturn Roe v. Wade has resulted in pro-choice initiatives and candidates winning landslide elections in deeply Republican states because a lot of dads and husbands don’t like the idea that their daughter would have to carry a rapist’s baby to term, potentially injuring her developing body.
The lack of empathy for those daughters, and their fathers, and how that policy would effect their lives, has been the root of the MAGA unwinding of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump won by being an asshole without empathy. Some people thought that proved that candidates and parties didn’t have to have empathy, that they could drive enough votes with negative partisanship and stoking anger and fear against minority groups who can be blamed for society’s problems.
You know, “them.”
Empathy is what lets you know what it might feel like to be “them.” To think about how you would feel if this restriction was being imposed on you in similar circumstances. To understand why they might object and think about ways to engage with those objections. To persuade, instead of to force.
Empathy is critical as a criminal defense lawyer. If the jury can’t see your client, standing next to you, as a person like them, they can never vote to acquit. Justice is something we want for ourselves, and for people like ourselves. Not everyone wants justice for people who are not seen as fully people. If you believe that all defendants with an interpreter “must be guilty of something because they’re probably here illegally,” you’re not going to weigh the evidence as though you could be sitting at that table next to your lawyer.
The Colorado Method of jury selection isn’t selection at all. It’s de-selection. You identify the jurors who can’t empathize with your client enough to give them a fair trial, and you excuse them to serve on some future jury where they could.
The path forward for our society is to seek out people with empathy. Seek them to be your partners in business, relationships, and life. If you find people who can’t seem to be empathetic to you, they are unlikely to be the critical team member or friend or spouse.
Political parties that succeed optimize for empathy, because empathy is a key to persuasion. People listen to people who listen to them, especially if they can demonstrate that they understood.
We all want to be heard and understood, and we all appreciate people who do hear and understand us.
There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, but there has been a consistent pattern of people walking away from the tone deaf populist extremism that was kindled by MAGA rallies.
Look at the reaction to Kristi Noem’s story about executing her dog Cricket in a gravel pit for being “untrainable.” She thought it would help her win the VP slot on a Trump 2024 ticket, because it’s the kind of tough MAGA politics that he created.
But people like dogs. They empathize with dogs. They consider stories about shooting a dog in a gravel pit to be repulsive.
When something becomes repulsive, it’s difficult to bring it back.
Smoking cigarettes isn’t coming back.
Leaded gasoline and CFCs aren’t coming back.
They became repulsive, there was no way to rehabilitate them, and they are gone.
Mark Graban says, “You get what you expect, and you deserve what you tolerate.”
Americans are starting to expect empathy and stopping tolerance for those politicians who lack it.
People like Marjorie Taylor Greene are finding fewer and fewer friends in Congress as members who can see the shift in voters are backing away from MAGA as quickly as they safely can.
Things are going to get better one day. And that day may be sooner than we think. Some really great things are happening right now that are bringing our culture back to one of kindness and cooperation.
Yours truly,
Nick
P.S. If you’re not as optimistic as I am, I would love to hear why. Send me your thoughts.