On Saturday, federal immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse in Minneapolis, sparking swift backlash both in the streets and online. Even some conservatives characterized the incident as a bridge too far. But, in other corners of the internet, female conservative Christian influencers appeared to be attempting to convince their largely female audience that officers were simply doing their job.
Rachel Moran, a Senior research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, sees influencers’ messages as part of a broader pattern. “For more conservative female influencers, we’re seeing them frame ICE-related violence within cultural frames that feel comfortable to them, such as religious narratives—battles of ‘good versus evil’ in which ICE is always good and any form of protest bad,” she wrote via email.
One of the loudest voices calling for women to stand with ICE is Allie Beth Stuckey, a podcaster, commentator, and author of a 2024 book titled Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. That phrase, “toxic empathy,” stands in for a larger argument of how Christian morality has been used to pull people—especially evangelical Christians—to the left. As Stuckey explains on the podcast of the New York Times‘ Ross Douthat:
“Empathy by itself is neutral. Empathy by itself, I believe, is neither good nor bad….But putting yourself in someone’s shoes, feeling what they feel, can also lead you to do three things that I say makes empathy toxic: One, validate lies. Two, affirm sin. And three, support destructive policies.”
You can catch the drift here: Calls to love your neighbor have, according to Stuckey, drowned out the other side of the equation—the harms supposedly caused by helping someone. If you are empathetic to an immigrant, you are ignoring the harm Stuckey says immigration causes.
Well nothing says they are there to protect them like shooting one in the head under false pretense, calling her a fucking bitch, then slandering her as a domestic terrorist and lying about an incident caught on video.
Ungrateful liberal whores! /s
“Empathy by itself is neutral. Empathy by itself, I believe, is neither good nor bad….But putting yourself in someone’s shoes, feeling what they feel, can also lead you to do three things that I say makes empathy toxic: One, validate lies. Two, affirm sin. And three, support destructive policies.”
The lack of self-awareness is staggering.
"Such frames advance traditional conservative Christian values that tell women to disengage from political discussion as it’s outside of their realm of authority,” Moran wrote me. Posts like this encourage followers to “interpret emerging news about ICE violence as justified or outside of their responsibility.”
And there it is, the reason behind the whole trad wife thing.
When one side frames empathy as “weakness,” it really makes it easy to identify the complete assholes.
Right wing influencers… Oh, the guys obsessed with the question “what is a woman” while never having met one in real life?
Favorite was why does the female character model have tiny hairs on her face…
Crafty progressives! Using the words of Jesus against innocent Christians!
Just like Jesus taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Be kind to your neighbor! And by neighbor, I mean people who were born here, of course. Mercy and Empathy are for losers!
^not the real message, but that doesn’t stop them^
Unless they are in disagreement with the king, in which case put some bullets in that bitch. New Age Proverbs or some shit. /s
Only women into ICE officers probably all have the Maga face.
The face only MAGA men could love
Who is that, is that unaltered? Looks like Loomer but I don’t think she’s quite that hideous yet. The more they go under the knife to fix the old butcher job the worse it gets, like Michael Jackson and his nose.
Because they are paid shills
Shaving collaborators hair is a time-honored practice
But Stuckey, at least, appears to be undaunted. “I am really glad I have never listened to the naysayers on X who say changing women’s minds on culture and politics is pointless and impossible,” she wrote on X on Saturday. “I have seen their minds change—over and over and over again. To others with me in that fight, keep slugging.”
I’ve been saying it since Elmo bought it…
The more rational people leave twitter, the more the rage addicted bigots will fight amongst themselves.
If it was 2012 a lot more people would be defending ICE, because they’d just blindly follow party lines and argue. When it’s just conservatives, they’ll argue along different lines which fracture their voting base.
Imagine how utterly cucked you’d have to be to believe this, wow
How many of these "Christian American women’s’ influences are none of the above. Most are bots run by group of attention scammers
The “Straight White American Jesus” podcast touched on this sin-of-empathy stuff recently. Listen here:
"Brad Onishi and Dan Miller connect the dots between City’s Church, ICE, Doug Wilson’s theological orbit, and the ideology behind The Sin of Empathy, showing how a strain of Christian nationalism produces pastors who see no contradiction between pulpit ministry and state violence. "
I’m not religious, but I hope there’s a hell. Seeing the shock on damn near every Christians face as they end up there. Chiefs kiss
