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In our current era of demonstrations, my favorite sign reads, “Empathy is our superpower!” And empathy — the ability to identify with the experiences of another — just might be the necessary magic to stop America’s autocracy-light from further morphing into autocracy-hardcore.
President Donald Trump’s “flood the zone” policy changes have been so swift and relentless that many of us have been left disoriented and shocked into inaction. But empathy for those most personally affected — those who have lost their jobs, those who have lost their services and those who have been detained and disappeared — is helping to ground and propel us into action.
Thankfully, those protesting to save democracy are also flooding the zone. We are pushing back through the courts, congress, commerce and on the streets. Our empathy superpower, enlarging our ability to feel compassion for those hurting, is spurring us to fight for each other’s rights.
But we can’t stop there. Empathy is also needed to bring back slashed programs — but reworked to be fully functional. We must continue creating roadblocks to the dystopian, but we must also mend the broken: pushing for health care and child care un-linked from profit-making considerations, strengthening the farmer-to-food-insecure pipeline and making sure there is available, affordable housing.
Nationally, we were already more than seven million low-cost housing units short. But the remedies offered — removing zoning for middle housing development and earmarking federal lands for homes — will not help. In my Eugene neighborhood, middle housing means a license to profit from newly built Airbnb rentals. Similarly, giving away federal land for high-end, market rate homes is an investor’s dream, but will do nothing for those desperate for low-rent homes.
Luckily, we have memories of past partnerships with the federal government, and each other, to house those in greatest need. World War II was another period of severe affordable housing shortages. But the collective experience of weathering the difficult years of the Great Depression left Americans resourceful, connected and with an empathetic belief that the needs of the commonwealth took precedence over the needs of individuals.
Encouraged to act collectively for the common good, we planted victory gardens, collected metal scraps and bought war bonds. Additionally, the federal government asked all who could to create extra housing units on their property. In Portland and here in Eugene, canvassers in 1944 went door to door, documenting and assisting the division of single-family houses into extra units. As an incentive, building codes were relaxed, loans were offered and building supplies were provided. Remnants of these extra units can still be found locally in some older homes.
Eighty years later, this program could again provide cheap and cheerful housing. But to do so, we will need to strengthen our communal empathy muscles and lessen the gulf between the have-a-lots and have-very-littles, which often impedes us from seeing those in need as “us.”
The same empathy that compels thousands to show up at rallies could also turn demonstrators into housing volunteers — creating the homes we would want a functioning government to provide. Our town has many properties perfect for carving out new deed-restricted, permanently affordable dwellings: homes too large for single-person households, and yards just waiting to fit in a new unit or two. But, like the 1940s, we need a community willing to engage in collective action, as well as sacrifices of some property rights for the benefit of our community.
Empathy as our superpower can motivate us to push back against the chaos and casual cruelty that seems to be our new reality. But even more important is the deep empathy that will be needed to create not just a durable democracy, but one that can provide the basic necessities of life for all of us.
