The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
“Johnny Cash practiced what I call a politics of empathy. He came to his political positions based on his personal experience, often guided by his own emotional and visceral responses to the issues” (Citizen Cash by Michael Foley). Cash had empathy for regular folks. His empathy gave his music great resonance.
In contrast, Trump lacks any empathy. Earlier this year he resumed mocking the late, cancer-ridden Arizona GOP Senator John McCain. Trump viciously attacked McCain for not voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA): “John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day.” Trump was cruelly ridiculing McCain’s thumbs-down gesture against repeal. Left unsaid was McCain, a war hero, suffered grievous injury to his arm from combat and mistreatment by the North Vietnamese. Trump never served.
Moreover, the wealthy Trump has also floated cutting Medicare and Social Security, saying that there was “a lot you can to in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting… .” Millions of Wisconsinites pay Medicare and Social Security taxes to earn benefits from these programs. But Trump has no empathy for regular folks. In 2020, President Trump also proposed looking at entitlement cuts.
Wisconsin Democrats Senator Tammy Baldwin, 3rd Congressional District candidate Rebecca Cooke and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris embrace empathy and identify with regular folks in fighting for health care affordability, access and coverage. Their advocacy is informed by their personal experiences. Baldwin had a serious childhood illness. Her grandparents paid out-of-pocket and later could not find an insurance policy to cover Baldwin because of her pre-existing condition. Cooke has watched her parents suffer serious health care problems with no Wisconsin Medicaid expansion and gaps in Medicare coverage. Harris helped care for her dying mother which makes it understandable why she supports expanding Medicare to cover home health care.
But Trump, who can buy anything, doesn’t get it. Despite all his efforts to repeal and sabotage the ACA (court challenges, ended cost-sharing subsidies, sharply reduced funding for outreach help for enrollment and shortened the enrollment period) McCain and 2 other GOP senators prevented ACA repeal. However, Trump now claims he “saved” the ACA. But Harris correctly pointed out that the “late, great John McCain … said ‘No, you don’t’.” Why is Trump lying about his record?
The Kaiser Family Foundation polling shows 62% of adults support the ACA. No surprise. The ACA covers over 21 million, including 266,327 Wisconsinites, with quality low-cost private insurance and 23 million more under Medicaid expansion. Moreover, there are no longer annual or lifetime coverage limits. And, insurance plans can’t refuse to cover those with pre-existing conditions.
Baldwin led in passing and improving the ACA. Cooke and Harris strongly support the ACA. All three want to expand and improve Medicare. Trump, devoid of empathy, doesn’t get it and never will. Nor do Cooke and Baldwin’s GOP opponents, Derrick Van Orden and Eric Hovde. Both support ACA repeal; like Trump they have no replacement. For them, empathy is for the birds, not Wisconsinites.
– Kaplan wrote a guest column from Washington, D.C., for the Wisconsin State Journal from 1995 – 2009.
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