Inflation looms over the Trump presidency
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
This single Trump deficiency has caused the horror of today's America
“If the president turned around and did away with that funding, I have no idea how we'd survive in the winter.”
But Trump and congressional Republicans don’t care: the budget Trump just released and they’re endorsing kills off LIHEAP.
Empathy is the ability to experience what another person is going through as a real sensation, a genuine emotion or even physical reaction, in body and mind. It’s what causes us to flinch or look away when we see a dog getting hit by a car or a fellow human experiencing real trauma.
Early on in my years rostered as a psychotherapist in the 1980s, I learned that there’s a subset of the human race — maybe we should call them “Lizard People” because they’re so cold-blooded — who literally lack the ability to experience what others are going through. Instead of being empathic, their processing of other people’s pain (or joy or elation or any sensation or emotion) is entirely intellectual.
They see what others are going through, but they don’t feel even a twitch of emotion; just an abstract understanding of what’s happening.
These Lizard People are usually referred to by folks in the mental health field as sociopaths or psychopaths. They represent a third of our prison populations (and account for 90% of violent crimes), around 1.5-4 percent of the general population, and a bit more than one-fifth (21 percent) of all our CEOs.
A few, who were born or raised with a strong moral compass even though they’re empathy-deficient, work hard to try to understand what others are going through.
Most, though, view empathy as a fundamental human flaw; they believe that because they’re not burdened by it they’re special, even superior to other humans. After all, they can do things that would keep most people up at night for years, all without thinking twice or any later reflection on their deeds.
People like this are often fond of quoting Nietzsche and his extensive pontifications about what he called the Übermensch, the “over-men” or “Super-men.” As he wrote in Will to Power #368:
“Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite which is injurious to the health, ]which says] ‘it cannot possibly be our duty to increase the evil in the world.’ If one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self and not One's neighbor that one is succouring. Pity does not depend upon maxims, but upon emotions. The suffering we see infects us; pity is an infection."
Nietzsche attacked Schopenhauer’s idea that there is a “morality of pity” or empathy, as well as calling Christianity a “religion of pity.” Hitler was so impressed that he laid a wreath inscribed with “To a Great Fighter” at Nietzsche’s grave.
Much like Ayn Rand, Nietzsche also hated the modern (this was in the late 1800s) state, including the then-new (1883) German system of single payer free healthcare. He called liberal democracy the “new idol” that was, he said, in fact “the coldest of all cold monsters” because this modern form of government was based on empathy, on the common good, on the general welfare instead of greed and self-interest.
It’s this same lack of empathy that would allow Trump to gleefully keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in an El Salvadoran concentration camp.
A lack of empathy is what would encourage JD Vance and Marco Rubio to gang up like schoolyard bullies against Volodymir Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, or allow Stephen Miller to reportedly think tearing children from their mothers was a good idea and let him “enjoy” seeing the pictures of crying kids as their mothers are led away.
In fact, empathy is at the core of modern civilization, and has defined civilized people for tens of thousands of years. As I lay out in detail in The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living, concern for every member of their communities — regardless of gender, gender identity, or disability — is what led tribal people around the world to create largely egalitarian political structures throughout prehistory. Structures on which we based our Constitution.
Empathy is foundational to every major religion in the world; Jesus’ sacrifice of his life for his followers is the ultimate expression of empathy. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “Love your enemies,” and the story of the Good Samaritan are among the highest expressions of empathy.
Empathy is the basis of unions, where workers band together to protect each other, and employers are required by law to recognize them.
It’s the basis of our public education system, where we all chip in to make sure that even the poorest and weakest among us can have a positive future.
It’s even the basis of business, where the core of good marketing is understanding what your customers need and the core of good management is having a sense of how to motivate your employees because you can imagine what they feel.
It’s also at the core of democracy, is the basis of modern law, and has been intrinsic to our constitutional system of governance since our nation’s first days. As so many of our nation’s Founders noted:
“The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence, were we callous to the touches of affection.” —Thomas Paine
“Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.” —Alexander Hamilton
It’s why the preamble and Article I of our Constitution both mention the “General Welfare,” and all persons in the United States are supposed to be beneficiaries of the due process rights guaranteed in the fourth through eighth amendments to the Constitution (Trump appears not to understand this).
It’s why the basis of Reconstruction, the New Deal, and the Great Society were all about lifting up people in distress and giving powerless workers the ability to fight back against poverty, hunger, and greedy CEOs.
Tragically, the Lizard People currently running our federal government appear to lack empathy. Trump keeps finding new and more brutal ways to punish and imprison people he dislikes; his latest kick is rebooting Alcatraz.
He doesn’t give a damn about Dwayne LaBrecque; hell, if he could figure out a rationalization for it he’d probably deport him.
Vance had to be corrected by the Pope when he argued that we should love our family more than the rest of humanity.
And Musk waxes poetic about his disdain for empathy and the policies it produces, referring to the crisis of “civilizational suicidal empathy” caused by progressive policies.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” he told an interviewer. “The empathy exploit—they’re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
The simple reality is that empathy is the thing that differentiates a healthy, caring civilization from brutal regimes like Nazi Germany or Putin’s Russia. It built America and has — until recently — guided our progress, generation by generation, toward a “more perfect union” in which all members of society are valued and protected.
Post-Eisenhower Republicans, however, have chosen to embrace an America run by fossil fuel billionaires spending millions to deny climate change, bankers ripping off their customers and the nation’s students, and insurance company executives who deny healthcare payments to guarantee their own million-dollar bonuses.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks to reporters. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
These Lizard People condemn “bleeding heart liberals” while blithely cutting off food and education to poor children, prenatal and child care to young women, and housing to the homeless. They celebrate Trump’s efforts to kneecap food stamps, education, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They prioritize tax cuts for billionaires over the lives of families devastated by extreme weather, the sick, and the homeless.
A nation without empathy is not a nation at all; it’s merely a conspiracy to elevate the powerful while crushing the weak, a crime syndicate with a flag and an army. This ultimate expression of a governmental system based on the repudiation of empathy is called fascism, oligarchy, or authoritarianism.
Lacking empathy, our society is left an empty husk, a simulacrum of civilization, a hollow shell where the GOP’s mantra of “personal responsibility” echoes through government’s dusty, blood-stained halls as it poisons the pages of history.
It’s the takeover of the cold-blooded Lizard People, heralding the death of democracy as well as our essential humanity.
But only if we let them. Pass it on.
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Trump AG's latest vow is straight from dictator's playbook — and it's a threat to us all
Bondi’s memo, released late on a Friday afternoon (a classic timing choice to minimize media attention), rescinded policies that had limited when and how Justice Department attorneys could pursue records or testimony from journalists, including in cases involving the unauthorized disclosure of government secrets to the press. The implications are chilling and immediate.
The Justice Department will now allow federal investigators to pursue communications from media outlets in government leak investigations, marking a complete reversal of Biden-era (and previous administrations’) policies that protected journalists from becoming targets of government intimidation.
Bondi’s justification? The Justice Department “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”
Did you catch that? Not disclosures that threaten national security, but those that “undermine President Trump’s policies.” Since when did the President’s policies become sacred and beyond scrutiny? Since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”?
Throughout our history, ethical government officials who leaked information to the press have been essential to maintaining our democracy. They’ve exposed corruption, illegal wars, and unconstitutional surveillance, and in many cases they’ve paid a heavy price for their courage.
Take my old friend and correspondent Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps America’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing how multiple presidents had systematically lied to the American people about the Vietnam War. He believed the documents contained “evidence of a quarter century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies and murder.” His brave act helped change public opinion and ultimately contributed to ending that disastrous war.
When Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon administration tried to block their publication. The Supreme Court ruling in New York Times Co. v. United States upholding the press’s right to publish has been called one of the “modern pillars” of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.
That same Nixon administration that tried to silence Ellsberg created the infamous “White House Plumbers” unit to stop leaks, which later led directly to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s downfall.
History shows that when presidents attack whistleblowers and the press, they’re usually trying to hide their own misdeeds. And it sure feels like that’s exactly what Bondi and Trump are now up to.
In more recent history, we’ve seen Edward Snowden expose the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and Chelsea Manning reveal troubling military actions, including the killing of civilians. Both were driven by their conviction that the American people deserved to know about government overreach and misconduct.
The Founders understood that a democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry, and citizens cannot be informed without a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. That’s why they enshrined press freedom in the First Amendment; they knew from bitter experience that power corrupts, and that the powerful will always seek to hide their corruption.
A free press serves as our early warning system against government overreach and abuse. When journalists can protect their sources, those inside the government who witness wrongdoing can come forward without fear of retribution. This critical flow of information is what Bondi is now trying to shut down.
Bondi’s actions come in the midst of an aggressive campaign against unauthorized leaking in Trump’s second administration. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has already referred “two intelligence community leakers” to the Justice Department for potential prosecutions, with a third referral on the way.
What we’re witnessing is step one in the dictator’s playbook: silence those who tell the truth about your regime. We’ve seen this pattern in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and countless other countries where democracy has withered into authoritarianism. First, attack the press. Then, criminalize dissent. Intimidate lawmakers, lawyers, and judges. Finally, consolidate power in the hands of a single leader.
Bondi’s memo added that there will be procedures in place before members of the media are compelled to testify or their records are seized, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Justice Department is now prepared to compel journalists to testify, and their records will be subject to seizure.
But the most alarming part of all is what Bondi reportedly wants to do next. According to sources close to the Justice Department, she has argued that leakers — or even reporters — who provide information that she doesn’t like could be prosecuted for treason, a crime that carries the death penalty.
Let that sink in: the Attorney General of the United States believes that journalists doing their constitutionally protected job could be subject to execution.
I’ve been covering American politics for five decades, and just to be very clear: This is not normal. This is not just another partisan policy dispute. This is an existential threat to our constitutional system of government.
When a government official can decide that reporting unflattering information is “treason,” we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re living in an authoritarian state where power flows from the top down, not from the people up.
Bondi’s actions reveal the Trump administration’s true nature. They have no interest in our democratic traditions or constitutional liberties. Their only goal is to consolidate power and silence dissent.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which documents threats to press freedom, has condemned Bondi’s decision and criticized Republicans in Congress who killed a federal shield law in 2024 that would have protected journalists from such subpoenas.
We’ve seen this before. Nixon’s attacks on the press were a precursor to his abuses of power. The Bush administration’s aggressive prosecutions of leakers after 9/11 helped enable his unconstitutional torture program and illegal surveillance. And Trump’s first term was marked by constant rhetorical attacks on the press as “enemies of the people.”
But this move by Bondi takes things to a new and dangerous level. By institutionalizing the persecution of journalists and their sources, she’s laying the groundwork for a full-scale assault on press freedom.
She claims that “subpoenaed news outlets are to be given advanced notice” and that the subpoenas will be “narrowly drawn,” but these are empty promises from an administration that has repeatedly shown contempt for democratic norms and the rule of law.
The time for polite disagreement or “strongly worded letters” is over. The time for waiting to see what happens next is over. We must act now to protect our democracy before it’s too late.
First, demand that Congress pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources. This is not a partisan issue; it’s about preserving the basic functioning of our democracy.
Second, support independent journalism with your dollars and your attention. Subscribe to newspapers, donate to nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica, and share important stories with your networks. A robust press is our best defense against tyranny.
Third, contact your representatives and tell them that protecting press freedom must be a top priority. Remind them that their oath is to the Constitution, not to any president or party. The phone number for the congressional switchboard, which can connect you to both your senators and your member of the House, is 202-224-3121.
Fourth, prepare to take to the streets if Bondi follows through on her threat to prosecute journalists for treason. That would be a red line from which there is no return to normal democratic governance.
Finally, remember that the press isn’t perfect — no human institution is — but it’s essential. When governments attack journalists, it’s rarely because they’re telling lies. It’s almost always because they’re telling truths that the powerful don’t want heard.
Daniel Ellsberg - seen here in 2010 - was a former US military analyst best known for his leak of the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971 (AFP)
We stand at a crossroads in American history. Down one path lies a renewed commitment to our democratic values, including a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. Down the other lies authoritarianism, where “truth” is whatever the leader says it is, and those who disagree face persecution or worse.
The choice should be obvious. But making the right choice requires courage, from journalists who continue to do their jobs despite threats, from whistleblowers who risk everything to expose wrongdoing, and from citizens who refuse to be silent in the face of growing tyranny.
Pam Bondi and Donald Trump have shown their true colors. They’ve revealed their contempt for the Constitution and their fear of the truth. They’re trying to create a country where no one can challenge their power or expose their corruption.
We cannot — we must not — let them succeed. Our democracy depends on it.
The time to act is now.