When 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on January 7, the reaction from many on the Left — particularly liberal women — was swift and deeply emotional. Vigils sprang up, heartfelt tributes were shared online, and many mourned Good as though she represented them, personally.

That emotional response is completely human, as losing a human being under any circumstances is sad, and in this case, totally preventable. However, if we’re honest, much of the public reaction leaned more on raw emotion than on rational analysis of what happened. And for many who identify as politically liberal, especially women, these emotions have become the primary filter through which political events are understood.

With more women being led by emotion — and the media basically pumping rage as the default response — their reactions to perceived injustices are driven more by how things make them feel, rather than what actually happened. It’s not just anger; there’s fear, frustration, and that constant sense that the world is out to get them. Because of that, many women are becoming more comfortable with “solutions” that match the intensity of their emotions, even if it means skipping important details or real-world consequences just to feel like something’s being done.

A recent Network Contagion Research Institute poll supports this growing need for an extreme response, finding that women were more likely than men to say that political assassination can be justified under certain circumstances. In that survey, 54.7 % of women expressed some justification for political assassination in at least one case versus 45.2 % of men, an unexpected finding that researchers described as part of a “deeper moral crisis” fueled by polarized online environments and emotionally moralized politics.

So, where is this coming from, and is it surprising?

Observers like Hot Air’s David Strom argue that the dramatic leftward shift in American politics, driven largely by women, explains the rising acceptance of extreme tactics. Women have become ideologically more liberal at a faster rate than men, whose views remain relatively moderate or even right-centered by comparison. Strom summarizes data showing that the gap isn’t because men have moved right, but because women have moved further left — sometimes into territory verging on “radical revolutionary” views.

So why does this matter for the way liberal women responded to Renee Good? Because when political engagement is built around intense emotional reactions — particularly anger at perceived injustice and fear of societal decline (ironically, as the anger and rage cause the societal decline women claim to be afraid of) — it becomes harder to talk about policy, various contributing factors, or personal choices that might have shaped events. Compassion and outrage are both valid human reactions, but they don’t replace factual analysis or accountability.

Take the specifics of Good’s death. The accounts of her final moments are conflicting: federal officials say she tried to use her vehicle as a weapon, while witnesses and activists strongly dispute that claim. The truth likely falls somewhere in the messy middle, shaped by rapid events, legal ambiguity, and high tension — the kind of situation where emotions can easily outpace careful reflection. And it’s exactly this fuzziness that the mainstream media can amplify, turning uncertainty into outrage.

This pattern — elevating emotion over evidence — has become frustrating to those who worry about maintaining any sort of political discourse. When the primary measure of rightness becomes how intensely one feels about an issue rather than how well one understands it, conversations break down. It becomes harder to persuade, to empathize with opposing views, or to find shared ground. Social media amplifies this dynamic — outrage and absolutes draw attention in ways that nuance rarely does.

That leads to a broader cultural critique: in today’s politics, emotion seems to trump facts, especially within ideological communities that intentionally isolate themselves from disagreement. For liberal women, who still truly believe that they are the defenders of empathy, equity, and justice, emotionally charged narratives are highly satisfying. But when that emotional validation crowds out scrutiny of real choices and consequences, it doesn’t lead to better understanding — it creates echo chambers where there is no need for facts.

Letting emotion take the lead instead of truth is risky. When decisions are guided by anger, fear, or the need to feel validated, the real-world consequences get ignored. Policies get rushed, protests turn chaotic, and “solutions” that feel satisfying in the moment can backfire badly. Running a society on what feels right instead of what’s true is a fast track to chaos.

The truth is, facts aren’t cold. They’re compassionate. Knowing what actually happened, why it happened, and how to address underlying problems is more humane than clinging to narratives that make us feel better in the moment. If we truly want to honor and help real victims and prevent tragedy, we need to commit to conversations grounded in evidence and consideration for everyone involved. Compassion grounded in truth is the only path toward mutual understanding, regardless of gender, background, or political identity.