"Under the Trump regime, the United States has entered a dark age in which conscience is not merely ignored but systematically dismantled. Compassion is mocked as weakness, truth treated as disposable, and cruelty elevated into a governing principle. This is more than corruption. It signals the suffocation of civic culture under gangster capitalism a predatory system in which power serves wealth, law serves vengeance, and democracy is hollowed out from within."
"For decades, neoliberal rule has hollowed out the social state, normalized staggering inequality, elevated billionaires to the status of civic arbiters, and schooled generations to believe that self-interest is the highest virtue. Public goods were dismantled or sold off, civic responsibility withered, and citizens were reduced to consumers, detached from any shared sense of fate. In such a landscape, empathy is no longer a public good but a private burden, something to be shed in the relentless pursuit of profit, power, and spectacle."
"As Zygmunt Bauman notes in Modernity and the Holocaust, gangster capitalism as a form of fascist politics thrives on moral sleeping pills and the dead silence of unconcern. The war on empathy is central to our lethal white supremacist culture, which thrives on violence and normalizes the politics of disposability."
"This assault is starkly visible in the rhetoric of Elon Musk, who has claimed that empathy itself threatens Western civilization. Such a view does not stand alone. It echoes a broader right-wing crusade, amplified by segments of white evangelical Christianity in the United States, that casts empathy as a dangerous moral weakness."
The material frames the current U.S. political climate as a “dark age” where conscience is ignored and dismantled. Compassion is portrayed as mocked, truth as disposable, and cruelty as a governing principle. The situation is described as more than corruption, linked to gangster capitalism, where power serves wealth, law serves vengeance, and democracy is hollowed out from within. It attributes the moral vacuum to refinement and weaponization rather than creation, citing decades of neoliberal rule that weakened the social state, normalized inequality, and reduced citizens to consumers. Empathy is described as shifting from a public good to a private burden. The text connects this “war on empathy” to white supremacist culture and cites rhetoric from Elon Musk and broader right-wing efforts, including parts of white evangelical Christianity, that portray empathy as a threat to Western civilization.
#gangster-capitalism #empathy-and-compassion #white-supremacy #neoliberalism #democracy-and-civic-culture
Read at truthout.org
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