Suicidal Empathy: The Left's Most Disarming Weapon
A framework once confined to academic circles now explains how misplaced compassion disarms victims, undermines justice, and endangers communities — with devastating real-world consequences.
"I don't want to put another black man in jail," she told reporters. Weeks later, the attacker she showed mercy to killed a 76-year-old retired teacher.
The 23-year-old woman refused to cooperate with prosecutors. She believed she had no right to be angry at the man who assaulted her. Her choice stands as the most devastating illustration of what Gad Saad, a marketing professor, calls "suicidal empathy."
What began as academic theory has moved into mainstream conservative discourse. The framework names a dangerous pattern: how liberal ideology weaponizes misplaced compassion to disarm victims, undermine justice and endanger communities.
Marketing professor Gad Saad and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine crystallized the concept in companion op-eds published May 10. Saad coined the phrase more than a decade ago. He argues that empathy untethered from rational judgment becomes a structural enabler of the very violence it claims to oppose.
"Empathy is an admirable virtue; as a social species, we have evolved the capacity for empathy," Saad wrote. "But as Aristotle explained millennia ago via his golden mean, all good things in moderation."
His new book, "Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind," reached No. 41 across all books on Amazon this month. The ranking signals the concept's accelerating adoption.
Devine identifies the mechanism as deliberate political strategy. "Women's nurturing instincts have been turned into weapons of political warfare, especially on the left," she argued. Survey data now confirms this creates a measurable demographic vulnerability.
A January 2026 study from the Network Contagion Research Institute, a Rutgers-affiliated outfit with acknowledged ideological leanings, found women were approximately 21 percent more likely than men to express some justification for murdering Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They were nearly 15 percent more likely to justify murdering President Trump. Sixty-seven percent of left-of-center respondents expressed at least some justification for Trump's murder, an 11-point increase from 2025.
The researchers noted that women have "historically played a stabilizing role in civic and social life." They concluded that when groups "long linked to moral restraint begin to show elevated tolerance for political violence, it suggests that the erosion is not ideological but structural."
That finding directly supports Devine's thesis. Women's nurturing instincts have been weaponized into instruments of political warfare.
An American University survey of No Kings Day 2.0 participants in October 2025 independently confirmed the pattern. About 60 percent of participants were women with a median age of 44. About 25 percent agreed that "Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country."
Saad frames the phenomenon in civilizational terms. He references historian Arnold Toynbee's warning: "Civilizations die from suicide, and not by murder."
Ben Shapiro extended the concept to "homicidal empathy" on his Feb. 12 program. "We are moving beyond suicidal empathy into what I would call 'homicidal empathy,'" Shapiro stated. "That would be exemplified by your empathy for someone, getting them killed."
Elon Musk amplified the concept during a 2025 appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience. He used the phrase "civilizational suicidal empathy." Saad has appeared multiple times on Fox News this month, including on Jesse Watters Primetime and Gutfeld!, discussing how America is "dying by suicidal empathy."
Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, author of "Therapy Nation," said the 23-year-old victim was "so concerned about how they'll be perceived by the public, to the point where they refuse to do the right thing."
"They feel like it's their duty to take a stand and not be responsible for stopping illegal migrants coming into the country or sending a black man to prison," Alpert told the New York Post. The victim now says she regrets her decision 100 percent.
The stakes extend beyond individual cases to systemic erosion. Burke was arrested four times between February and May 2026 before killing Ross Falzone. Judge Marva Brown, a former Legal Aid Society public defender known for lenient treatment of violent felons, released Burke on supervised release after the April 2 attack.
Saad's framework gives conservatives language to articulate what they have long sensed. Compassion without discernment doesn't heal societies. It dismantles them from within.
The 23-year-old woman now lives with 100 percent regret. Ross Falzone is dead. Those are the consequences of suicidal empathy.