Selfishness Is Not a Virtue

New York Times

a day ago

When Christianity goes wrong, it goes wrong in a familiar way.
Last Friday, at a town hall meeting in Butler County, Iowa, Senator Joni Ernst delivered a grim message to her constituents. In the midst of an exchange over Medicaid cuts in President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' someone in the crowd shouted at Ernst, 'People are going to die!'
Ernst's immediate response was bizarre. 'Well, we all are going to die,' she said.
True enough, but that's irrelevant to the question at hand. Yes, we're all going to die, but it matters a great deal when, how and why. There's a tremendous difference between dying after living a long and full life that's enabled at least in part by access to decent health care, and dying a premature and perhaps needlessly painful death because you can't afford the care you need.
All of this should be too obvious to explain, and it would cost Ernst — who occupies a relatively safe seat in an increasingly red state — virtually nothing to apologize and move on. In fact, just after her flippant comment, she did emphasize that she wanted to protect vulnerable people. The full answer was more complicated than the headline-generating quip.
By the standards of 2025, Ernst's comment would have been little more than a micro-scandal, gone by the end of the day. And if we lived even in the relatively recent past, demonstrating humility could have worked to her benefit. It can be inspiring to watch a person genuinely apologize.
But we're in a new normal now.
That means no apologies. That means doubling down. And that can also mean tying your cruelty to the Christian cross.
And so, the next day Ernst posted an apology video — filmed, incredibly enough, in what appears to be a cemetery. It began well. 'I would like to take this opportunity,' she said, 'to sincerely apologize for a statement I made yesterday at my town hall.' But her statement devolved from there.
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