40 Years After Live Aid: What Happened to Our Empathy?
MAGA’s greatest weakness is its absence of empathy. Our greatest weapon might just be rediscovering ours.
Forty years ago this week, the world came together.
On July 13, 1985, musicians, broadcasters, and everyday people united for Live Aid—two massive concerts, broadcast to more than a billion people across 150 nations, with one singular goal: to alleviate famine in Ethiopia. The cause was simple. People were starving, and the world responded. Not with cynicism. Not with “whataboutism.” Not with “America First.” Just with empathy. With kindness. With humanity.
We saw suffering, and we acted.
Can you imagine that happening today? A large segment of this country—egged on by right-wing media echo chambers—would decry it as woke. They’d mock the artists. They’d sneer at the cause. They’d say, “Why are we helping them when we have our own problems?” They’d shout America First! as if empathy has a passport. As if suffering needs to meet a residency requirement.
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s the reality of MAGA ideology. Its greatest weakness—indeed, its defining rot—is its utter absence of empathy. It’s a worldview built on fear, suspicion, and selfishness. Help refugees? “Invaders.” Feed the hungry? “Not our problem.” Support the LGBTQ+ community? “Groomers.” Defend our allies abroad? “Endless wars.” Fund USAID programs that fight disease, hunger, and instability around the globe? “America First.”
Yes, we have problems to solve at home. But that has never meant, and should never mean, that we turn our backs on suffering abroad. (And let’s be honest: Trump’s domestic policies aren’t helping those in need here at home, either.) It’s not just a lack of generosity; it’s a calculated rejection of compassion and shared humanity.
I watched part one of the BBC/CNN Live Aid documentary on Sunday night, and the one thing that struck me above all else was the overwhelming sense of empathy that drove it all. No one waited for someone else to act. No one asked, “What’s in it for me?” Musicians, producers, broadcasters, politicians, and everyday people felt something… and so they did something. The instinct wasn’t to mock, but to move. That kind of collective compassion feels almost foreign today. And yet, it was real. It happened.
It’s not just policy differences anymore. It’s a moral divide.
But if MAGA’s weakness is its lack of empathy, then our greatest strength, and our greatest hope, may lie in rediscovering ours.
We have to remember what it means to care. About strangers, about the powerless, and even when there’s no direct benefit to us. Because that’s the real test of moral leadership—not how we treat our allies, but how we treat the vulnerable. Not how loud we shout, but how deeply we feel.
If we want to defeat authoritarianism, we can’t just fight fire with fire. We have to fight cold indifference with warm, radical compassion.
Forty years ago, America didn’t wait for perfection. Ronald Reagan didn’t ask if Ethiopia was “America’s problem.” We saw suffering, and we showed up.
If we can find our empathy again, if we choose compassion over cruelty, we just might remind the world, and ourselves, of the country we still have the power to be.