Clinton Ignites ‘War on Empathy’—Conservatives Blast Hypocrisy, Faith Claims

Paul Riverbank, 1/31/2026Clinton clashes with conservatives over empathy’s role in politics, faith, and American morality.

What set Clinton's piece apart was less what she said—criticism of MAGA tactics is nothing new—than how she drew those lines back into religious territory. She accused some conservative Christians of abandoning the core of Jesus’ teachings, suggesting that the world they championed under Trump had strayed far from those old Sunday School lessons. In her telling, “love your neighbor” isn’t just a sermon soundbite but a standard being neglected on a national scale. “Not in Donald Trump’s America,” she wrote, pointing specifically to tragedies like the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, which she linked to a society grown numb to suffering.

Stories like Pretti’s death have, in fact, rattled communities. Clinton posed a blunt question: how anyone with a conscience could look at families split apart by immigration enforcement, or children hiding in their homes anxiously, and fail to feel the tug of empathy. For her, the heartbreak in Minnesota is all tangled up with a national climate that’s gone cold. It’s a sharp message—a reminder that policy debates aren’t just about laws, but also about the stories of real people getting caught in the gears.

Predictably, not everyone agreed with Clinton’s take. She singled out Allie Beth Stuckey, who often wears her faith openly on her sleeve. Stuckey’s warnings about “toxic empathy” became a particular flashpoint—Clinton called the term both “appalling” and almost self-contradictory. That brought Stuckey out swinging. “When Hillary Clinton is writing 6,000 word op-eds in the Atlantic attacking warnings against toxic empathy, you know you’re over the target,” the podcaster quipped, poking fun at the attention.

The pushback wasn’t all snark. Stuckey questioned Clinton’s own spiritual authority, noting that Clinton herself admitted she hadn’t always put her faith-tradition front and center in public life. “For her to position herself as someone who is an authority on faith… that’s a problem,” Stuckey said on her show, with the kind of directness that goes over well with loyal listeners.

But faith and politics have always been uneasy partners, and Clinton’s op-ed only highlighted old tensions. She accused Stuckey and her ilk of getting “enraged” over the idea that Christian belief calls for welcoming immigrants, not barring them. Yet for Stuckey, unexamined compassion—empathy without boundaries—simply opens the doors to being taken advantage of. And so the argument circles back to an age-old split: whether the country needs more mercy, or more order.

That debate isn’t unfolding in a vacuum. Recent events in Minneapolis, especially the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have unsettled even some Republican stalwarts. The outcry over federal agents’ conduct—particularly after Pretti’s death—briefly fractured usual party discipline. Unnamed GOP voices went on-record to say what’s rarely said out loud: the party’s tight-lipped support for law-and-order had become hard to stomach when American citizens ended up dead on city streets.

If Clinton’s allies sense an opportunity—some hint of a break in Trump’s once-solid base—they’re not alone. Across Minneapolis, local activists (never ones to wait for marching orders from Washington) have pushed back on federal muscle as blatant overreach. An opinion piece noted the obvious: if there’s to be a political turning point, look to those grassroots organizers, not the party mannequins in DC.

But if this is a turning point, it’s happening against the backdrop of bitter old arguments. Clinton’s call is for the “courageous faith leaders”—those not usually heard on prime-time cable—to step into the breach that she thinks conservative politics has left in church and country alike. For her, it’s the missing voices of moderate Christianity that could restore some balance.

Her opponents, however, aren’t buying what they see as a reinvention. Critics recite a well-thumbed list of Clinton's past missteps—Benghazi, or her own administration’s handling of immigration clamor—as evidence of contradiction, not conviction. One wrote, “There would be no ‘heavily armed federal forces’ in Minnesota if political figures on Clinton’s side hadn’t encouraged open defiance of immigration law.” Hypocrisy, for them, is the defining feature of her new moral bravado.

It’s a country wrestling with old questions—What role should empathy play in shaping law? How do you balance compassion with safety, or justice with order? Clinton’s Atlantic essay won’t settle those debates. What it has done, however, is bring a fresh edge to a conversation that shows no sign of quieting down.

Hillary Clinton doesn't often return to the national conversation quite so forcefully, but this week, her voice rang out in The Atlantic. The essay she delivered didn't tiptoe around the edges of political combat—it went straight for the core of the MAGA movement. Clinton, with a mix of bemused frustration and outright alarm, argued that the harshness she observed during Donald Trump's presidency wasn't just political rough-and-tumble; to her, it was a conscious choice, a design feature, not an aberration. She went so far as to call out a "war on empathy" that, in her eyes, has steadily eroded the moral core of American politics.What set Clinton's piece apart was less what she said—criticism of MAGA tactics is nothing new—than how she drew those lines back into religious territory. She accused some conservative Christians of abandoning the core of Jesus’ teachings, suggesting that the world they championed under Trump had strayed far from those old Sunday School lessons. In her telling, “love your neighbor” isn’t just a sermon soundbite but a standard being neglected on a national scale. “Not in Donald Trump’s America,” she wrote, pointing specifically to tragedies like the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, which she linked to a society grown numb to suffering.Stories like Pretti’s death have, in fact, rattled communities. Clinton posed a blunt question: how anyone with a conscience could look at families split apart by immigration enforcement, or children hiding in their homes anxiously, and fail to feel the tug of empathy. For her, the heartbreak in Minnesota is all tangled up with a national climate that’s gone cold. It’s a sharp message—a reminder that policy debates aren’t just about laws, but also about the stories of real people getting caught in the gears.Predictably, not everyone agreed with Clinton’s take. She singled out Allie Beth Stuckey, who often wears her faith openly on her sleeve. Stuckey’s warnings about “toxic empathy” became a particular flashpoint—Clinton called the term both “appalling” and almost self-contradictory. That brought Stuckey out swinging. “When Hillary Clinton is writing 6,000 word op-eds in the Atlantic attacking warnings against toxic empathy, you know you’re over the target,” the podcaster quipped, poking fun at the attention.The pushback wasn’t all snark. Stuckey questioned Clinton’s own spiritual authority, noting that Clinton herself admitted she hadn’t always put her faith-tradition front and center in public life. “For her to position herself as someone who is an authority on faith… that’s a problem,” Stuckey said on her show, with the kind of directness that goes over well with loyal listeners.But faith and politics have always been uneasy partners, and Clinton’s op-ed only highlighted old tensions. She accused Stuckey and her ilk of getting “enraged” over the idea that Christian belief calls for welcoming immigrants, not barring them. Yet for Stuckey, unexamined compassion—empathy without boundaries—simply opens the doors to being taken advantage of. And so the argument circles back to an age-old split: whether the country needs more mercy, or more order.That debate isn’t unfolding in a vacuum. Recent events in Minneapolis, especially the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have unsettled even some Republican stalwarts. The outcry over federal agents’ conduct—particularly after Pretti’s death—briefly fractured usual party discipline. Unnamed GOP voices went on-record to say what’s rarely said out loud: the party’s tight-lipped support for law-and-order had become hard to stomach when American citizens ended up dead on city streets.If Clinton’s allies sense an opportunity—some hint of a break in Trump’s once-solid base—they’re not alone. Across Minneapolis, local activists (never ones to wait for marching orders from Washington) have pushed back on federal muscle as blatant overreach. An opinion piece noted the obvious: if there’s to be a political turning point, look to those grassroots organizers, not the party mannequins in DC.But if this is a turning point, it’s happening against the backdrop of bitter old arguments. Clinton’s call is for the “courageous faith leaders”—those not usually heard on prime-time cable—to step into the breach that she thinks conservative politics has left in church and country alike. For her, it’s the missing voices of moderate Christianity that could restore some balance.Her opponents, however, aren’t buying what they see as a reinvention. Critics recite a well-thumbed list of Clinton's past missteps—Benghazi, or her own administration’s handling of immigration clamor—as evidence of contradiction, not conviction. One wrote, “There would be no ‘heavily armed federal forces’ in Minnesota if political figures on Clinton’s side hadn’t encouraged open defiance of immigration law.” Hypocrisy, for them, is the defining feature of her new moral bravado.It’s a country wrestling with old questions—What role should empathy play in shaping law? How do you balance compassion with safety, or justice with order? Clinton’s Atlantic essay won’t settle those debates. What it has done, however, is bring a fresh edge to a conversation that shows no sign of quieting down.