If researchers for Florida Atlantic University are correct, the era of swooning over political candidates who claim to feel our pain is over. In a recent poll that asked respondents to rank the qualities they sought in a president, adults living in Florida ranked empathy dead last.
We pause here to allow the standing ovation among HotAir readers — who know what’s what — to subside.
Now that we’re all seated again, let’s make this clear: Empathy is a noble trait, one that honorable individuals practice in their lives as a matter of course. Moreover, we should acknowledge that our communities are improved by the countless volunteer organizations that make empathy part of their creed.
But when it comes to the formulation of public policy and the investment of government resources, empathy is, too often, an instrument of mischief. The New Deal. The Fair Deal. The New Frontier. The Great Society. The Patriot Act. Obamacare. The CARES Act. The Green New Deal. Every left-drifting slide along this path has been rooted in and nourished by empathy as government policy.
This is not at all to suggest a political epiphany among the 924 Florida adults surveyed Oct. 27-Nov. 11; instead, the rejection of empathy most likely is the result of the stark choices confronting the electorate. The burial of empathy as a quality of choice is merely a happy byproduct.
Stipulated: All polls are snapshots. Today’s foreground focus could, in six months, be part of the background fuzz. Nonetheless, just now, potential voters in Florida prize integrity and leadership by a wide margin over intelligence, stability and empathy.
Looking inside the numbers of our new FAU Mainstreet PolCom Lab Poll of Florida Voters. When choosing a President, Integrity matters more to Democrats, while Leadership matters to GOP. Interestingly, few picked empathy, with no Republicans in our sample.https://t.co/uWEL1tYqKG pic.twitter.com/HCYyq9ZdUo
— Dr. Kevin Wagner (@KevinWagnerPhD) November 22, 2023
Sunshine State Republicans put leadership (55.6%) at the top of their wish list, ranking integrity (34.2%) second. This may explain some of the stubborn pinched-noses support for Donald Trump, who, despite flapping like an air dancer the last 18 months of his single term, somehow retains his reputation for leadership.
Florida Democrats flip the rankings: Integrity ranks first (50.8%) and leadership a distant second (19.6%). This would explain Dems’ forgiveness of Joe Biden’s floundering as a decision-maker — they’re willing to take one for the team — but treasuring integrity while supporting Biden is, on the available evidence alone, cognitive dissonance defined.
For wishy-washy independents, leadership and integrity are, not unexpectedly, a wash (40.5% vs. 40.2%).
Intelligence and stability were sort of lost in the noise across the board (as you would expect when Trump and Biden are the perceived frontrunners). But empathy’s tumble from grace is instructive. Only 7.8% of Florida Democrats put cares-about-me at the top. Now you know why “Bidenomics” was dropped from the president’s public remarks.
Across the aisle, Florida Republicans gave empathy absolutely zero love. Zip. Zero. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.
Which brings us to an editorial published Aug. 23 by the Miami Herald, just ahead of the first GOP presidential debate. Here was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second chance to make a proper first impression, the editors wrote.
This is a tremendous opportunity for DeSantis to hit reset, to do away with the adjectives that have stuck to him like gum on the bottom of his shoe: unlikable, extreme, uncharismatic, opportunistic and, as the Editorial Board finds, inauthentic.
Their advice? Embrace the quality Florida Republicans absolutely reject.
For the record, the Editorial Board has disagreed with DeSantis’ damaging policies in Florida and is horrified by Trump. That said, if DeSantis can begin to speak with more common sense, more concern to ground-level issues — and with more empathy and authenticity — perhaps he can give those outside of Trump’s base something to rally around.
The FAU survey reports an alternate reality. In Florida, the American melting pot’s melting pot, regular folks recognize these are not times for fainting couches and handwringing. The economy remains uncertain, throttled by rampant federal spending and unproven and expensive energy policies; the world is increasingly dangerous; and America’s streets and highways are choked by the organized spasms of extremists.
Against that backdrop, empathy, at least in Florida, has become the comfortable refuge of left-leaning opinion-writers, college professors and agitators. They misread the room at their peril.
“I think the empathy question really speaks a lot about the state of our political discourse,” said FAU political scientist Kevin Wagner. “It does suggest that to voters, beating the other side is more important than understanding the other side.”
We have to agree with the professor. Beating the other side is more important. As the sage philosopher Barack Obama once told GOP congressional leaders while jamming nearly a trillion dollars of stimulus empathy down their throats in 2009, “Elections have consequences.”
Win first. Decide about understanding later.
