Why conservatives are losing their minds over Simone Biles
The Republican empathy deficit, explained
Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympic team gymnastics finals this week, citing the need to protect her mental health. The news came just minutes after Biles faltered during a difficult vault move in a way that could have left her paralyzed.
Biles’ decision drew criticism from conservative ideologues who had not previously shown any particular interest in gymnastics. Activist Charlie Kirk called Biles a “sociopath” and a “shame to the country.” British pundit Piers Morgan said “what a joke” and added “kids need strong role models not this nonsense.” Conservative writer Amber Athey labeled Biles a “quitter.”
In other news this week, a House hearing on the January 6 insurrection turned emotional as Capitol police officers recalled the violence and racist abuse they suffered at the hands of a mob of angry Trump supporters. Again, conservative commenters pounced. GOP Representative Jim Banks called the hearing “performance art.” Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham struck a similar note. Perennial attention-seeker Matt Walsh pronounced that “men should not cry in public. It is unmanly and dishonorable.”
The conservative hostility on display in these two very different cases goes well beyond typical partisanship or polarization — Biles’ decision about whether or not to compete carries zero political implications, for instance, and until January 6 there was universal agreement that mobs of people invading the halls of government to disrupt vote counting was a Bad Thing.
One thread connecting the Trumpist Right’s behavior here is empathy, or rather the lack thereof. The modern movement conservative brand is built, in large part, upon proudly refusing to care about other people. Over the past five years many conservatives have celebrated the cruelty for cruelty’s sake explicit in much of Trump’s policymaking, the administration’s glib indifference to plight of those suffering at home and around the globe, and the savage mockery of its perceived political enemies.
Indeed, study after study has shown evidence that conservatives have a distinct empathy deficit relative to independents and liberals. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey, for instance, found that 86 percent of the most liberal Americans said empathy for others was especially important to teach to children, with 34 percent calling it the most important thing. Among conservatives, the percentages were 55 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Similarly, 88 percent of liberals valued teaching children tolerance of others, compared to just 41 percent of conservatives.
In 2010, a consortium of researchers who study moral psychology found that liberals who were more interested in politics became more empathetic towards others. Among conservatives, the effect was the opposite: greater political engagement made them more indifferent toward others.
The phenomenon isn’t simply an American one. In 2018, researchers studied empathy among conservatives and liberals in the U.S., Germany and Israel. Consistently, across all three countries, liberals both wanted to feel more empathy and experienced more empathy than their conservative peers. In the U.S. and Germany, liberals also showed more willingness to help others. A 2007 Canadian study also found that a lack of empathy was associated with a greater likelihood of voting for the country’s Conservative party.
Why does any of this matter? For the simple fact that it’s kind of difficult to hold a society together if its members don’t care what happens to each other. “Empathy is our ability to share and understand one another’s feelings—a psychological ‘superglue’ that connects people and undergirds co-operation and kindness,” as Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki describes it.
When empathy erodes, society starts falling apart. People may convince themselves, for instance, that it’s preferable to let the elderly to die than it is to lose a few points of GDP to pandemic restrictions. That it’s okay to mock children crying in cages because they didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to come here. That even the slightest inconvenience for the sake of other people is an unconscionable assault on one’s personal freedom. Above all, a lack of empathy is useful when concluding that other people don’t deserve health care, or a decent wage, or a say in charting the future path of the country.
It wasn’t too long ago that “compassionate conservatism” was the rallying cry of the GOP standard-bearer, and there remain factions within the party that steadfastly renounce Donald Trump’s brand of “fuck your feelings” conservatism. But it’s the Trumpists who hold power in the GOP today, and who hold their lack of empathy up as a sort of bizzaro-world civic virtue: “facts don’t care about your feelings,” as the people with the most tenuous grasp on the facts are fond of saying.
This mindset is on full display in the unhinged abuse being directed toward Simone Biles and Capitol police officers this week. Mocking a person for taking care of their mental health is much easier when you, yourself, are incapable of imagining what it’s like to deal with the mental pressures of competing on the world stage with billions of people watching. In order to accuse an emotional police officer of “putting on a show” you have to be either unwilling or unable to imagine the horror of begging for your life while being assaulted by an angry mob.
These are moral failures, plain and simple. Kids need strong role models, not this nonsense.