Empathy as ‘Civilizational’ Suicide
Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk has served as a powerful ally for Christians and conservatives worried about the influence of empathy on public policy.
While Musk has said that when it comes to Christianity, he is “not a believer” and that he is “okay with going to hell, if that is indeed my destination,” he nevertheless considers himself a “cultural Christian” and believes “that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise.”
So although Musk is an adherent to “the religion of curiosity,” he stays within the orbit of the evangelical community. From his love for Christian satire site The Babylon Bee to his place in the Trump administration, the evolution of Musk’s views on empathy have partly shaped—and been shaped by—the evangelical discourse regarding the subject.
In his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has set out to combat what he believes is the country’s tendency toward “civilizational suicidal empathy.”
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in February. “They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
The salve, to the mind of Musk and his supporters, is gutting social programs and public services at home and abroad. Since the start of the Trump administration, Musk and DOGE have sought to make significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid services, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, among others.
Musk has gone as far as to characterize the public funds distributed to these agencies as “illegal payments.” And despite the fact that these programs represent a small portion of the national budget, particularly when compared with the military contracts (from which Musk personally benefits as leader of SpaceX and Starlink), Musk has accused programs like AIDS prevention of being a waste of taxpayer money.
This policy approach is in line with that of President Trump himself, who has sought to freeze funds for refugee resettlement, leaving in the lurch many previously vetted refugees and frustrating the efforts of Christian refugee resettlement organizations.
Many of the refugees are Christian fleeing threats of violence in Muslim-dominated Afghanistan.
Trump has also made efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to conduct the largest mass deportation in American history. Per a recent report, roughly 81% of those at risk for deportation are Christians.
Meanwhile, Trump has fast-tracked refugee status for Afrikaners, a group grappling with the South African government’s effort to implement reparative justice after decades of racial oppression under Apartheid, and who, as Trump put it, “happen to be white.”
Trump has not only used novel interpretations of existing statutes to carry out his mass deportation efforts, but he has also done so with a sense of glee. One social media post from the official White House account features an “ASMR” video of detainees in chains being loaded into aircrafts. For Valentine’s Day, the White House shared an image that read, “Roses are red / Violets are blue / Come here illegally and we’ll deport you.”
Trump has been consistent in his orientation toward migrants from Latin America, at one point in his campaign arguing that they “are not human.”
Donald Trump as a Reflection of Evangelical Values
While the world probably doesn’t need another think piece on the immorality of Donald Trump, it is difficult to ignore that Trump is a central figure in the war on empathy. En masse, evangelicals have never wavered in their support of Trump, despite the fact that his public persona during his entire political career has been marked not just by cruelty but also by an unabashed celebration of the same.
Trump has been criminally convicted for defrauding banks and insurers, and he has been adjudicated by a jury for sexual abuse. He lies vociferously and attacks with schoolyard insults (and sometimes lawsuits) anyone who seeks to hold him accountable.
All of this has earned him the admiration of millions of everyday evangelicals, as well as a myriad of evangelicalism’s national leaders.
