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Notes -
I think this is one place where the Internet has severely soured the discourse. I strongly suspect that the median answer in both cases is that they care more than you expect, and that the loud cases you see online aren't truly representative (although I worry they are becoming moreso).
There exists genuine disagreement about how best to care about, say, single-parent families ("encourage marriage"/"throw money at them") with both sides accusing the other of being counterproductive, but as a fairly moderate voter, I don't generally doubt the intent on either side. There are some obvious cases of motivated reasoning -- although it's often hard to tell when one's reasoning is so-motivated. I have friends across the political spectrum, and while the level of empathy I see for others varies, none of them seem to operate purely selfishly (although such people probably exist outside of my set of friends).
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