Empathy

“Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth it’s more akin to politics. And politics has no place in the courtroom.” ...Republican Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.  Of Alabama.  Where empathy occasionally rears its ugly head ...

The Republicans' use of "empathy" as a kind of insult or red flag may do more damage to their political ambitions than Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, and everything else put together.

Educated Republicans are already looking into the possibility that these anti-empathy senators have no idea what the word means.  Embarrassing.  Dead end, too.  They come to realize, of course, that for their fellow Republicans "educated" has been an insult no less than empathic and "thoughtful."

People living on, or well-acquainted with the raw, dark, and underfed edges of our society -- those other people with votes -- are horrified by Republican politicians' willful embrace of indifference.  They see Republicans as associating with evil itself.

Empathy is the converse of indifference, apathy, and narcissism.  Already Republicans have a far too well-known reputation for pathological levels of narcissism -- see Sanford, Palin, Ensign, et al. Narcissism is (finally!) getting to be a no-no in America after several decades of running rampant along with obesity, meths, McMansions and nipple rings. 

Narcissism and, by definition, Republicans are so yesterday.