In a political era increasingly defined by cruelty as policy, modern Republicans have weaponized the concept of empathy itself—mocking it as weakness and coining what some now call “The Sin of Empathy.” Under Donald Trump’s leadership, this ideology has manifested in harrowing ways: brain-dead women forced to carry doomed pregnancies, American citizen children battling cancer deported by ICE, and U.S. soldiers dispatched to Los Angeles to crush immigration protests—without even being provided a place to sleep. When a preacher dared to remind Trump to show compassion to LGBTQ and immigrant Americans, the president dismissed her as “woke,” reducing basic human decency to a political slur. Even abroad, cruelty persists as policy, with atrocities unfolding in the West Bank and Trump’s response being a proposal to build luxury condos on contested land. In this climate, empathy isn’t just absent—it’s treated as a threat.