In every case, there is some "more important cause" that someone prioritizes that makes it look like they don't have empathy.
I think you will find a lot of leftists caring deeply about the lives of people who are currently working in coal mines or in a police force, and concluding that the best answer for them is found in different employment.
It is no lack of empathy to the life of a coal miner to say that coal should stop being mined any more than it is a lack of empathy to the life of a soldier to say that a war should end.
It's the same with people on the right with this immigration issue. They care about immigrants, but they care about rigid immigration policies to prevent "free-riders" even more. That's why you will find very few right-leaning people against legal immigrants as opposed to the many against illegal immigrants.
Or to be more honest, they think white rural Americans dying of drug overdoses is funny. I mean these stupid rednecks deserve it right? Fewer white births than deaths in many states? (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/white-minority-populat...) It's about fucking time!
Now I'm being a bit unfair to the left here partly because I'm more pissed at them, as I'm a liberal who would have thought this was "my team" just a few years ago. Of course there are people that would say all that and probably worse regardless of their politics. But something seems very wrong. IMO it's been a long time since this large of a number of people on either side truly think their political opposition ought to be killed. I've seen people on the left say Trump voters should be shot, he should be assassinated, etc., and I've seen similar shit coming out of the right as well. Not even on the internet; I have heard this things IRL. Maybe modern society/technology has done something really fucked to our empathy? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been like this as long as I've been alive.
That's a terrible way to put it.
I'm sure you meant to phrase it differently but in its current form, your comment comes across as more snarky than substantive or civil.
That fact almost proves the point OP was making though, when your argument is emotion based offense at hostile views comes naturally.
"liberals are easily offended" is just right wing spin of the clear fact that the left have always cared more about real people.
Some of these rules, IMHO, are absurd, but many you'd come to the same conclusion without faith as with it.
They mostly agree with their understanding of the Bible, so extend the benefit of the doubt to issues they don't yet understand.
Similar to supporting a policy because your favorite politician supports it.
Every time I've dug into some divisive issue I see core rational arguments on both sides along with these faith based cop outs or short sighted emotional appeals.
Broad characterization of the opposing side as evil, morally bankrupt, racist, sexist, fascist, communist, or other negative traits is why our politics are so toxic.
Instead of "but both sides" and a false appeal for civility, you could read some accounts of people involved with the movement.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-l...
That article was a good personal account which could definitely change minds.
At the bottom? Fear of the other; in the United States, fear of the other rooted particularly in racism. Because it's not "nationalism" here--a disease by itself, but a controllable one. It's white supremacism, given nicer clothes by calling it "white nationalism" for some godforsaken reason, peddled by leaders who want the bottom to vote their way. It's not like it's news. Lee Atwater pegged this whole disgraceful thing decades ago. To legitimize and get boots on the ground for economically regressive policies, the right wing of the United States leveraged this racially-motivated insecurity; now the racist tiger has eaten them and they are so very surprised that the racist tiger was racist all along.
At the top? They're the ones doing the peddling. Some is surely true-believer racism. Some is also surely cynicism--because the bottom will eat it up and there's your leash to drag them where you want. It isn't exactly complex.
(And, no, Obama and Clinton are not "ultra right" from a European perspective; that's the sort of mendacious both-sidesing I expect out of actually far right speakers, though. Obama and Clinton would be generically center- to center-right politicians on a Europe-calibrated axis. The modern Republican Party is more like Ukip.)
I do want to compliment you for the rhetorical twirl of trying to co-opt reality with the Russian specter, though. It's bold. Projecting...but very bold.
All things are relative. Given that description of Obama or Clinton, what would you classify those who ran as Republicans in the last election?
For the primaries, using similar measures at least, the Republicans all more or less clumped together to the right of Clinton.
He very clearly is not in favor of free education, he is very clearly not in favor of raising the minimum wage, he very clearly is not in favor of universal health care, and very clearly is not in favor of more bank regulation.
So I find the claims that Clinton was more to the right of Trump quite dubious.
From Russia eh?
More likely to have empathy is another way to phrase that.