empathy. Some of the most caring people I've ever known have been conservatives. But they typically tend to express their empathy individually (so it isn't noticed except by those close to them) or through their churches. Unfortunately, they might be so biased against government programs they automatically think those really can't help.

And I've known liberals who showed little signs of empathy toward real people around them, though they could fit people into ideological or academic frameworks and back government programs to help groups of people. I've seen liberals who had such complete contempt for religion they couldn't acknowledge the good many church groups do.

You have to see the social worlds people are existing in and the filters/frameworks that shape their approaches to others to understand how empathic they are.

You have to see them as individuals.

Your comment reminded me of a story in Slate that I posted here in August of 2018, about John McCain and Mo Udall's friendship, and how much it meant to McCain:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211051856

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/john-mccain-dead-the-great-mccain-and-mo-udall-story-youve-probably-forgotten-from-michael-lewis.html

For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church, only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influential Democrat.

One wall of Udall's hospital room was cluttered with photos of his family back in Arizona; another bore a single photograph of Udall during his season with the Denver Nuggets, dribbling a basketball. Aside from a congressional seal glued to a door jamb, there was no indication what the man in the bed had done for his living. Beneath a torn gray blanket on a narrow hospital cot, Udall lay twisted and disfigured. No matter how many times McCain tapped him on the shoulder and called his name, his eyes remained shut.

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. "He's not going to wake up this time," McCain said.

-snip-

And then, for maybe the third time that morning, McCain spoke of how it affected him when Udall took him in hand. It was a simple act of affection and admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life. It was one man saying to another, party political differences cut only so deep. Having made that step, they found much to agree upon and many useful ways to work together. This is the reason McCain keeps coming to see Udall even after Udall has lost his last shred of political influence. The politics were never all that important.

That's empathy. That's seeing another person as an individual, beyond politics.

That's what Biden understands, and what we all need to learn, and practice.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden