When They Tell You Compassion Is Weakness
I read this article in The Guardian: “The womanosphere urges dubious followers to back ICE: ‘Don’t let compassion cloud you.’”
Always-in-fifth-place Riley Gaines wants you to stop feeling compassion. Let that sink in for a moment. Let that truly sink in.
Renée Good was a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother who had just dropped her child at school. As her car moved forward on January 7th, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot her three times, with the fatal shot entering her temple. The federal government called her a domestic terrorist. Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse. Federal agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him to the ground, and shot him ten times on January 24th. He was trying to help people. He was filming what was happening.
And after all of this, Riley Gaines and her crew are telling their followers that compassion will “cloud your critical thinking.” They’re teaching you to kill your own empathy.
Vying for most-hated woman of the year in a crowded field in the womanosphere, Megyn Kelly said it out loud: “I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for Alex Pretti, but I don’t. I don’t.” Her reasoning? She wasn't shot because she stayed inside and minded her business. That’s her logic. A nurse trying to help people deserved to die because he didn’t stay home and look away. This is what they’re selling you. This is the cruelty dressed up as strength.
This is also a woman who defended Jeffrey Epstein's taste for "15-year-old girls" as "barely legal." When you're this desperate to stay relevant, apparently defending pedophiles and mocking dead nurses is just part of the job.
The Christian Nationalism Con
Here’s what kills me. A lot of these same people wrap themselves up in Christianity. They talk about faith and family and moral values. But FFS where’s Jesus in any of this?
These are the people who literally paraded a golden statue of Trump at CPAC. They’re the golden calf worshipers from Exodus, lecturing you about faith.
Jesus didn’t say “Love your neighbor unless they’re undocumented.” He didn’t say “Show mercy after you check their papers.” The Good Samaritan didn’t ask for documentation. When Christ said “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” there wasn’t fine print about visa requirements.
Christian nationalism is selling you a lie. It tells you that faith and compassion are opposites. That you have to choose between being strong and being kind. Between protecting yourself and being human.
But the gospel doesn’t tell you to harden your heart. It tells you to break it open.
And here's the darkest part: for many of them, the cruelty is the point. End Times theology teaches them that suffering and chaos are necessary preconditions for the Rapture. They're not trying to build a better world, they're trying to burn this one down so they can be chosen to rise with Jesus. Pastor John Pavlovitz, who spent decades inside evangelical megachurches, calls it what it is: not a civil war, but a Christian Nationalist holy war. He’s right.
They'll kill innocent people to get there. Somehow they think the God who said "Blessed are the peacemakers" wants them to create maximum suffering so he'll come back faster. That seems kinda fucked up if you ask me.
These people aren't offering you faith. They're offering you permission to be cruel.
Compassion Isn’t Stupid
To me, compassion doesn't mean you're naive. Empathy doesn't mean you can't think straight. Actually, it's the opposite.
When someone tells you to ignore the human cost of what’s happening, to look away from suffering, to treat your own conscience like it’s a weakness, that’s when you should pay the most attention. That’s when your compassion is telling you something important.
Cruelty only works if we stop seeing people as people. It needs us to accept simple stories about “threats” and “illegals” instead of dealing with the complicated reality that these are human beings. People trying to survive. People trying to help. People like Alex Pretti, shot ten times for caring.
The people telling you to shut off your empathy? They’re training you to accept the unacceptable.
You can think clearly and still feel deeply. When someone tells you that compassion is clouding your judgment, ask yourself: what are they trying to get me to accept that my conscience would normally reject?
Your empathy isn’t a weakness. It’s what keeps you human when the people in charge are trying to normalize cruelty.
Don’t let them take that from you.
What You Can Do
Resistance isn’t passive. On March 28, people across the country are standing up with a clear message: No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings.
But you don’t have to wait until March. This week, there are coordinated actions happening nationwide:
January 30th: National Shutdown - NO WORK. NO SCHOOL. NO SHOPPING. STOP FUNDING ICE.
January 31st: ICE Out of Everywhere
February 17th: Impeach, Convict, Remove, Defund
Find protests near you at fiftyfifty.one and nokings.org.
Silence isn't neutrality. It's a choice.
This is a moment to show up for Renée Good, for Alex Pretti, for every family being torn apart, for every person being dehumanized by this machinery of cruelty. Your presence matters. Your voice matters. Your refusal to accept this as normal matters.
Show up. Bring others. Let your compassion move you to action, not paralysis.
Your empathy is a weapon. Use it.
See you out there!
-David
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