Or think about contemporary anti-immigrant rhetoric. When Donald Trump campaigned in 2015, he liked to talk about Kate—he didn’t use her full name, Kate Steinle, just Kate. She was murdered in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant, and Trump wanted to make her real to his audience, to make vivid his talk of Mexican killers. Similarly, Ann Coulter’s recent book, Adios, America, is rich with detailed descriptions of immigrant crimes, particularly rape and child rape, with chapter titles like “Why Do Hispanic Valedictorians Make the News, But Child Rapists Don’t?” and headings like “Lost a
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I am naturally very sympathetic to this reasoning! But it does seem like a good point in how empathy can override reason and lead to immorality.
