Hillary Clinton wants America to know that the MAGA movement has abandoned Jesus. The former secretary of state published an essay Thursday in The Atlantic titled "MAGA's War on Empathy," arguing that President Trump and his supporters have rejected Christian compassion in favor of cruelty.
The essay references recent confrontations involving federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, including two shootings that remain under investigation. Clinton seized on these incidents to paint the entire movement as morally bankrupt.
The White House wasn't impressed. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson offered this response to Fox News Digital:
"Just when you think Hillary can't get more irrelevant she publishes an 'essay' no one will read in the even-more irrelevant Atlantic. We have no reaction because we don't waste our time reading her rantings."
Clinton's newfound concern for Christian charity rings hollow to anyone who remembers 2016. During that campaign, she offered this assessment of Trump's supporters, according to Fox News:
"You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up."
Half of Trump's supporters. Tens of millions of Americans. Dismissed as irredeemable bigots by a woman now lecturing the country about empathy.
This is the same politician who lost to Trump in 2016, attended his inauguration in January 2025, and has spent the years since searching for relevance. The Atlantic essay appears to be her latest attempt.
Clinton's essay leans heavily on religious language to frame her attack. She wrote:
"MAGA rejects the teachings of Jesus to 'love thy neighbor' and care for 'the last, the least, and the lost.' It recognizes only a zero-sum war of all against all."
She also claimed:
"That compassion is weak and cruelty is strong has become an article of MAGA faith."
The former secretary of state—not previously known for centering her politics around the Gospels—has apparently discovered Christianity's usefulness as a rhetorical cudgel. When progressives invoke scripture, it's typically to demand that conservatives abandon their positions. When conservatives invoke scripture, progressives demand separation of church and state.
Clinton extended her critique to religious figures on the right:
"They have become a rallying cry for a cadre of hard-right 'Christian influencers' who are waging a war on empathy."
The essay uses two recent shootings in Minneapolis as its foundation. Renee Nicole Good was shot by a federal agent in one incident. Weeks of protests followed. Weeks later, ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in a separate confrontation.
Both cases remain under investigation. The administration maintains that federal agents were justified in both instances.
Clinton didn't wait for the investigations to conclude. She rendered her verdict in The Atlantic, describing Trump's approach this way:
"Trump and his allies believe that the more inhumane the treatment, the more likely it is to spread fear."
And further:
"The glorification of cruelty and rejection of compassion don't just shape the Trump administration's policies. Those values are also at the core of Trump's own character and worldview."
Clinton's essay asks readers to believe that she—the architect of the "deplorables" framework—is the appropriate messenger for a lecture on empathy. The woman who dismissed half a political movement as morally deficient now wants that same movement to examine its conscience.
This is how the left operates. Condemn your opponents as subhuman, then demand they meet your standard of compassion. Lose an election, then spend years explaining that the voters who rejected you are the ones with character defects.
The contradiction doesn't trouble Clinton. It never has.
Clinton has remained a persistent voice against Trump since her defeat. She delivered keynote remarks at Georgetown University in December 2025. She released a book, "Something Lost, Something Gained," in September 2024. The Atlantic essay is another entry in an ongoing effort to remain relevant to a party that has largely moved past her.
The timing matters. Minneapolis has become a flashpoint over federal immigration enforcement. Critics have accused the administration of heavy-handed tactics. Clinton's essay arrives precisely when the left needs validation for its outrage—and The Atlantic is happy to provide the platform.
The publication itself has become a reliable outlet for Trump-era resistance content. Clinton's essay fits the brand perfectly: elevated tone, progressive assumptions, citations of moral authority that conveniently align with Democratic politics.
Strip away the biblical references and the Minneapolis framing, and Clinton's essay reduces to the same argument she's been making since 2016: Trump supporters are bad people. The language has evolved from "deplorables" to opponents of empathy, but the substance hasn't changed.
She lost that argument in 2016. Trump won. He won again in 2024. Yet, Clinton keeps writing essays about the moral failures of the people who voted against her.
The administration's response captured something important. They didn't engage with her arguments. They didn't rebut her claims. They noted her irrelevance and moved on. That response tells you everything about where Clinton stands in American politics today.
She's writing essays in The Atlantic about empathy—the same woman who looked at tens of millions of Americans and saw nothing worth respecting. The country has heard her message. It rejected her twice. The basket of deplorables is governing now.
