Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Name one inter-personal credential often missing in the United States today.

Okay, I will.

Empathy.

Which is embodied in the headline I used for this blog, borrowing an opinion piece from the New York Times written by columnist David French who worries that empathy is dying.

I do, too.

So, before including excerpts from what French wrote, what does the word empathy mean?

Simply this:  “The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

Said a different way, empathy means to put yourself in someone else’s shoes so you’ll understand more about them than you would otherwise.

Empathy is different, and more profound, than sympathy.  In the latter, you try to feel what someone else is feeling, so you express sympathy for them.  With empathy, you actually put yourself in the other person’s position and thus convey more than just neutral understanding.

To many in the world of Donald Trump, empathy is a weakness.  Not a strength.

A year ago this month, French said he wrote a newsletter warning about a new trend from what he and others call  “the MAGA Christian right.”  Some supposedly Christian theologians and influencers had begun warning about the ‘sin of empathy’ or ‘toxic empathy.’

“In books, essays, podcasts and speeches, prominent Christian influencers, ministers and theologians sounded the alarm that secular progressives were leading Christians astray by appealing to their emotions at the expense of their reason.

“The version of their case goes like this:

“Progressives have turned Christians’ soft hearts against hard truths.  Progressives have persuaded all too many Christians that the suffering of, say, undocumented immigrants or women facing unwanted pregnancies should override their concerns about the economic and social costs of large-scale immigration, or their compassion for victims of crimes committed by immigrants, or their concerns about the plight of the unborn child.

“Sometimes, as the argument goes, you have to do tough, hard things.  That means mass deportation.  That means cutting off aid to the poor and vulnerable in the developing world.  That means ending gay marriage even if it breaks up families.  And that means the strictest possible pro-life laws, even when the life or physical health of the mother might be at stake, or sending mothers to jail for aborting their child.”

While Trump and his ilk practice anti-empathy, French adds that many of us also are often unwilling to place ourselves in other people’s shoes, to try to understand who they are and what their lives are like.

More from French:

“It’s hard to talk about this issue without recognizing a fundamental truth of the moment:  The attack on empathy would have gained very little traction in the church if Trump weren’t president.  He delights in vengeance, and he owes his presidency to the evangelical church.  [Based on polls on voting in the last presidential election.]

“But this problem extends well beyond public policy into the fundamental cruelty and callousness of the culture of the new right.  It is no coincidence that the attack on empathy correlates with an extraordinary rise in blatant racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia on the right.”

To French, empathy stands as a firewall against bigotry.

“But it’s more than that — it can also free you from bigotry.  Understanding another person’s experience and imagining if it happened to you softens our hearts and creates human connection.”

To this, I add hearty agreement.

It is worth displaying empathy as a citizen these days and even more so if you are a real Christian.