Michael Cohen - The Death of Empathy in American Governance
Let’s rewind the tape.
Back to that infamous moment when Donald J. Trump, then a candidate for President of the United States, stood behind a podium and flailed his arms in grotesque mimicry of Serge Kovaleski, a disabled journalist. I remember watching in stunned silence, the pit of my stomach knotting—not just because of what he did, but because I knew the man. I knew the callous cruelty was not a misstep, not a gaffe; it was the point. Trump knew what he was doing, and worse, he knew it would thrill the crowd.
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When Trump mocked a Gold Star family, John McCain’s war hero status, immigrants, women, the disabled—he set the tone. Not just for his administration, but for an entire political movement that has since metastasized into something darker, crueler, and now fully mainstream within the Republican Party.
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In a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa, on May 30th, Ernst was asked about Medicaid cuts tucked neatly into Donald Trump’s tax-slashing bonanza for the ultra-wealthy. Someone in the audience—clearly worried about the very real consequences for the poor, the elderly, the disabled—shouted, “People will die!”
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/the-death-of-empathy-in-american