Trump’ s cruelty is designed not only to consolidate power but to distort our collective sense of right and wrong. For today’ s Republicans, empathy is now considered weakness. Kindness is called“ wokeness.” Helping your neighbor is labeled“ socialism.”
Faith has been turned into a weapon for the powerful rather than a refuge for the weary. Jesus wept— and not metaphorically— when he saw the temple turned into a marketplace. What would He say now about supposedly Christian pastors praising a man who brags about sexual assault, pardons rapists and cop-killers, and surrounds himself with grifters and predators?
And let’ s not forget Jeffrey Epstein and the ongoing coverup of the elites in his orbit. The man died in federal custody under suspicious circumstances. The list of powerful men who flew on his plane, visited his island, and knew of his crimes continues to grow, yet the institutional GOP, which claims to be the party of morality, is silent. Worse than silent, they deflect, deny, or defend; they even shut down Congress to avoid having to vote on releasing the Epstein papers and videos.
This is exactly what Jesus warned against in the Sermon on the Mount: the hypocrites who pray loudly in public but are ravening wolves in secret. What morality is this?
The GOP today wraps itself in the language of faith and family, but what they practice is cruelty, racism, misogyny, and hierarchy. They criminalize compassion, turning public school teachers, judges, social workers, and librarians into targets for harassment. They encourage neighbors to report each other. They celebrate vigilantism. They ban books, persecute trans kids, and militarize the police, all while calling it“ freedom.”
And it’ s not just Trump. The entire Republican Party has reinvented itself in his image. From J. D. Vance, who once warned about Trump’ s destructiveness and now echoes his every word, to state governors outlawing drag shows while doing nothing about gun violence in their own schools, the cruelty, violence, and even the deaths of our schoolchildren are the feature.
This political movement and the economic inequality it’ s caused through 44 years of Reaganism, gutting our middle class while making a handful of billionaires richer than any pharaoh or king in history, is corroding our social fabric.
Families are being torn apart by deportation, addiction, and poverty. Communities are afraid to speak up or organize. Schools are underfunded, teachers frightened, parents angry and divided. Faith institutions are splintered, some radicalized into political cults, others silenced by fear of retribution.
And through it all, the GOP blames the victims— poor people, immigrants, Black activists, women seeking reproductive healthcare— for the problems Republicans themselves have created.
Trump’ s America today is in decline, but it’ s not because we’ ve become too compassionate. It’ s because we’ ve allowed the morbidly rich to hoard wealth, the powerful to dodge responsibility, and the cruel to dominate the public square.
And yet history tells us there’ s another way. Compassion is not weakness; it’ s the glue of civilization and has been throughout human history.
FDR built the New Deal on compassion. LBJ built the Great Society on the moral imperative to lift up the least among us. Democrats fought— against fierce Republican opposition— for every major social advance of the last century: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the minimum wage, voting rights, civil rights, safe food, women’ s rights, union rights, gay marriage, student loans, public education, free college.
And the American people— time and again— chose compassion. Until the GOP figured out how to gerrymander, suppress, and lie their way into power. Reagan called poor people“ welfare queens.” Gingrich told Americans to hate our own government. Trump put the knife in the back of democracy itself. But it doesn’ t have to end this way. We need a return to morality: not the fake, punitive“ morality” of the Christian right, but the genuine morality of justice, equality, and care that Jesus talked about. Of feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger. Of binding up the brokenhearted and lifting the fallen.
That is not“ radical leftism”: it’ s the moral center of every faith, every humanist tradition, and the glue that holds together every decent society.
Government is the only force large enough to address systemic injustice, and it should be used to heal, not harm. We must reclaim our government as the instrument of public good. We must reject the outrage politics of the GOP— the hate, the lies, the violence and bigotry— and recommit ourselves to the American promise of liberty and justice for all.
Only 26 % of eligible voters made Donald Trump president in 2024. That means three out of four Americans either didn’ t vote or voted against him. We are the majority. But we must act like it.
Double-check your voter registration— every month— especially if you live in a Red state, where Republican-led purges are removing people from the rolls by the hundreds of thousands as you’ re reading these words.
They are afraid of your voice. They are afraid of your compassion. They are afraid that if you show up, their cruelty will lose.
We are better than this complete repudiation of the ideals, aspirations, and founding visions of America. And now, more than ever, we must prove it. Not with hashtags or thoughts and prayers but with votes, with organizing, with moral clarity, and with the unshakable belief that in America, cruelty should never again become policy.
Let’ s bring compassion and morality back to the center of American life, and demand that our elected representatives and those running for office do the same. Before it’ s too late.
78 The Trial Lawyer