The death of empathy in the US Government:

[applegrove]

The Death of Empathy in American Governance
open.substack.com/pub/meidasto...

— [e-mail] (@blueangie.bsky.social) 2025-06-02T15:24:03.232Z

And what did Ernst say? Did she pause? Did she acknowledge the anguish, the fear in that person’s voice? Did she show even a flicker of the kind of compassion we once expected from our elected officials?

No.

She laughed. Then smirked. And replied, “People are not—well, we all are going to die. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”

That’s right. Medicaid cuts that could cost lives—whether due to lack of insulin, cancer treatment, nursing home support—were waved off as a cosmic inevitability. Death is certain, so who cares if we accelerate it with brutal policy?

This wasn’t a slip. It wasn’t an “out of context” quote, as her communications team might spin. No, it was emblematic of a deeply disturbing trend in our politics: the normalization of indifference.