What Good is Empathy if You are Dead?

President Trump and the First Lady went to hurricane ravaged Texas to view firsthand the devastation and destruction. The mainstream media of course was focused exclusively on Melania’s choice of footwear for most of the morning and had settled comfortably back into the President Trump is a sociopath narrative by lunch. During a time when President Trump is garnering bipartisan praise for the government’s response in dealing with Hurricane Harvey the unhinged mainstream media’s response stands in stark contrast. The more that they continue to fixate on irrelevant details to hype anti-Trump narratives the more the media is exposed as Leftwing agenda pushing activists.

 

The latest narrative making the rounds among the Left leaning media is… President Trump did not show enough empathy during his Texas visit. Of course, this story is being pushed by the mainstream media because it furthers their narrative that there is something wrong with President Trump mentally. It is Rule #5 of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” in that it is only meant to further ridicule the President and not report the facts. These accusations are offered up with the thinnest of evidence. Just because the media which always covers President Trump through a very negative lens did not report or show him hugging moms, holding babies or shaking someone’s hand does not mean it did not happen. The same goes for the thousands of people who lined the road to welcome the President, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if those people had been holding signs disparaging the President instead of supporting him that would have been the lead of every network instead of buried. The media had their ideal President with Obama in that he went out of his way to show his empathy. It never mattered that his solutions to problems were ill-advised or impractical as long he brought the emotion. This has become the fundamental difference between the Left and Right sides of the political spectrum when it comes to the approach of solving issues.

“He didn’t hug a mom or hold a baby or shake someone’s hand or ask a senior how they were doing. It was really remarkable. It was typical Donald Trump, without an ounce of empathy.” – Joan Walsh

The Left continuously obsesses over the why part of the equation. Why it is important to give money to poor people. Why it is important to curb stomp businesses with regulations to save the planet. For Leftists, the “Why” has become the emotional money shot and be dammed anyone who asks any other questions especially the “How”. While the Right is more likely to take a balanced approach in evaluating both the “Why” and the “How” as part of making determination if we should move forward with a solution; the Left simply frontloads the emotional part of the question and only seeks to answer one side of the question. Once the “Why” is confirmed the “How” becomes irrelevant for the Left; mainly because the go to solution for a Leftist in answering the “How” inevitably always leads to more governmental control.

When I see the media being critical of the President for his trip to Texas it leaves me dumbfounded on how they could have arrived at this conclusion. Where the media saw borderline psychopathic behavior, I saw a leader that was focused on solutions instead of hugging children for photo ops. Where the media heard a speech by a heartless man who did not focus enough on the plight of the victims, I heard a coach give a halftime speech meant to inspire a team that was down, but was still in the game. Where the media compared the President to the likes of Ted Bundy (or insert your favorite sociopath here), the people on the ground in Texas saw a POTUS that is focused on bringing the resources of the nation to bear to help ALL the citizens of Texas.

When I look to a leader during a time of crisis I have expectations. First and foremost, among those expectations is building a plan and executing against it. While empathy is a great trait to have, I would rather follow the person who relentlessly pursues the plan to get the lights back over the person who wants to waste valuable time reflecting on our feelings and giving out hugs. The people of Texas don’t need the President’s shoulder to cry on, they have each other. The people of Texas need reassurance that it is time to pick themselves back up off the floor and that the government is working on aligning the resources that they are going to need to make that happen. While empathy is all well and good, it doesn’t quench your thirst, it doesn’t feed empty bellies and it doesn’t mean a thing if you end up dead.