Nicholas Kristof wrote a great piece in yesterday's New York Times about the decline and early death of a high school buddy who hurt his back, lost his job, and ended up on disability. Kristof goes straight to the point:
The doctors say he died at age 54 of multiple organ failure, but in a deeper sense he died of inequality and a lack of good jobs.
and then to the heart (or lack thereof!) of the problem:
That acerbic condescension reflects one of this country’s fundamental problems: an empathy gap. It reflects the delusion on the part of many affluent Americans that those like Kevin are lazy or living cushy lives. A poll released this month by the Pew Research Center found that wealthy Americans mostly agree that “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”
The "empathy gap," because it extends far beyond the wealthy, is the bedrock of the right's ability to maintain a political environment where they can advance the interests of the one percent at the expense of everyone else. The reaction, in the face of human suffering, "that could never be me and they must have done something wrong to deserve it," is what enables red state politicians to turn down Medicaid expansion and still get elected and leads to what, if it weren't true, would be the laughable spectacle
of the politically ambitious son of Indian immigrants calling for new forms of apartheid.
In my opinion, the fact that capitalism treats people as labor inputs in the production process creates a fertile ground for the empathy gap. But whatever one's position on more philosophical questions like this, there can be little doubt that the right's capacity to successfully fight against the interests of the vast majority would evaporate with a bit more empathy and higher voter turnout by the 99%.