Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul and faith…
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzlin’ you
Is the nature of my game
Sympathy For the Devil, The Rolling Stones, 1968
What has been and remains puzzling to nearly everyone is the nature of his game. Exactly what is driving, what is behind the insanity, the meanness, the evil, of one Donald Trump?
Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was recently interviewed by Lulu Garcia-Navarro of The New York Times. As head of the ICRC, an organization charged with being the independent and neutral guardian of the Geneva Convention, Spoljaric has met with leaders engaged in conflict from every corner in the world. The old norms and rules of international relations are eroding. According to Spoljaric, many world leaders “simply don’t care anymore, and this lack of empathy, this lack of anger, is what I find most dangerous at the moment.”
This lack of empathy, or the inability to feel empathy for others is especially notable with Trump. A man whose own mother immigrated from Europe, a man who married two immigrants, one from the former Czechoslovakia and the other from Slovenia, shows no empathy for the challenges and racism faced by immigrants coming to our country. Case in point, witness Trump’s relentless, and likely illegal, attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
This social media poster comments that “If you can’t find inspiration in her story,” one of survival and tenacity, “you have lost sight of what this country is supposed to stand for.” Trump’s inability to feel empathy, and no doubt his racist tendencies, preclude him from feeling anything close to inspiration.
What is empathy and what causes people to be unable to feel it? We all know how it feels to be “heard,” listened to and understood. Whether it’s one’s doctor, a family member or a neighbor, feeling like the person who has been listening to you really understands you, is a powerful experience. That deep understanding, or empathy, is a skill and practice that requires listening, concern and genuine care. It is taught in elementary schools and as part of graduate school counseling programs. Being empathic is an act of feeling and understanding another person’s experience. And importantly, it includes demonstrating that you relate to the other person’s experience on more than a superficial level.
According to Helena Roderick, PhD with Northwell Health, “a lack of empathy can be the result of an individual’s upbringing and how social skills were modeled or taught. For example, in some cultures or religions, boys may be discouraged from displaying vulnerable emotions.” “Low empathy, she continues, “may also be caused by mental health conditions, such as antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder.” Many observers have commented that Trump likely suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.
If not Trump, who is the “face” of empathy-disabled? Some would say Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The new movie The Social Reckoning, according to film critic Jim Hunter, “depicts Zuckerberg as an antisocial tech bro robot with absolutely no empathizable human emotions except for greed and megalomaniacal control over his creation.” Zuckerberg is widely seen as a person having no feelings other than those associated with self-preservation. It’s bad leadership for a CEO or a President, and a bad recipe for any organization or country.
In The Decent Society, author Avishai Margalit, frames the act of listening as a fundamental requirement of protecting human honor and preventing humiliation. He ties communication directly to whether individuals are viewed as full human beings or merely as objects.
Most Americans would agree that we want leaders who bring out the best in others. We respect leaders who bring people together, leaders who model care, concern and understanding. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a leader who polarizes, and seems to be fueled by hate and retribution. Empathy? Try to recall even one instance when Trump demonstrated genuine care and concern for a group or individual.
And true to the lyrics of the Rolling Stone’s classic song, Trump, with his inability to empathize, has stolen many a person’s soul and faith.
