Early in his first term, President Obama said that in choosing a nominee to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, he’d look for someone with, among other qualities, “empathy.” Conservatives countered that the so-called empathy standard would result in a justice whose rulings had more to do with subjective opinion than with the law.
That reaction wouldn’t surprise writer Edwin Lyngar, who believes that opposition to empathy is at the heart of the righty worldview. In a Monday piece for Salon headlined “I was a conservative coward: How the midterms evoked my past of shame, terror and Fox News,” Lyngar wrote that during his days as a right-winger, his fears “were so intense that they left no room for me to consider the motivations and opinions of other people, which is the defining characteristic of modern conservative politics.” (Italics in original.)
And who foments the fear that blocks feelings of empathy? “There is one political party most dedicated to creating and exploiting irrational fear in Americans,” declared Lyngar. “Sure, the left does it too (and they should not), but only the conservative ideology is defined by it.”
From Lyngar’s piece (bolding added):
When I was a conservative, I fretted about people and issues from faraway places that had zero actual impact on my daily life. The terror was both illogical and very real. The feelings were so intense that they left no room for me to consider the motivations and opinions of other people, which is the defining characteristic of modern conservative politics.
The last election demonstrates the triumph of fear over reason. People were scared, disillusioned and confused, so they didn’t vote…
There is one political party most dedicated to creating and exploiting irrational fear in Americans. Sure, the left does it too (and they should not), but only the conservative ideology is defined by it…
…[T]he “amygdala” [is] the part of the brain responsible for our basic survival.
…[T]he amygdala houses our fear and anger, also known as the basic two planks of the Republican Party platform. It creates in some people an animalistic fear of the ill-defined “other” who is out to take your job, collect unearned government benefits or have kinky sex with your daughter…
Lefties, by and large, don’t come to universal agreement on issues. They have a tendency to discuss every issue to death. It’s a good trait based on empathy and tolerance, but all the waffling makes it impossible for them to condemn people like [Bill] O’Reilly in an effective way. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and others often take on O’Reilly, but there is always a kindness behind the criticism that is the hallmark of liberalism…O’Reilly is exposing himself as a pants-shitting, sniveling coward. He can’t possibly love America, because he’s too busy being terrified by nonexistent threats to offer any meaningful contribution to society.
The good news is that O’Reilly is losing, and he knows it…A child of the ’50s, he has spent his life expecting certain communities to kowtow to him. For O’Reilly, every small brown person, immigrant or poor person exists only to carry his bag, but now “those people” are talking back...
…When I was conservative, even before gay marriage or the Affordable Care Act, I knew that every conservative loss, no matter how tiny, was one we could never get back. The realization that every inevitable forward step was a loss for my cause enraged me, stimulating my reptilian brain. Even against an avalanche of one-sided wins, conservatives have to only lose one, say, the gay marriage debate, and they can never, ever move the needle backward.
