If the author of this article thinks that all their political disagreements can be reduced to "I care about people and you don't", that precisely explains why they struggle so much to "reach across the aisle" and why they are burnt out on political debate.
If your political opponent wants the same things as you, but merely has differing values and perspectives, then reason and compromise should be able to cause some meaningful change in perspective or come up with some useful middle-ground policy.
But if your political opponent does not want the same things as you - they are, in fact, "callous" and don't care about the well-being of others - then there's no room for meaningful debate. Telling someone who disagrees with you "can you please stop being evil?" isn't going to convince them of anything. The other side simply needs to be removed from power so that you are unopposed in implementing your policies.
So I actually agree with the author: if that is what you believe about your political opponents, then debating about politics is probably a waste of your time.
If your political opponent wants the same things as you, but merely has differing values and perspectives, then reason and compromise should be able to cause some meaningful change in perspective or come up with some useful middle-ground policy.
But if your political opponent does not want the same things as you - they are, in fact, "callous" and don't care about the well-being of others - then there's no room for meaningful debate. Telling someone who disagrees with you "can you please stop being evil?" isn't going to convince them of anything. The other side simply needs to be removed from power so that you are unopposed in implementing your policies.
So I actually agree with the author: if that is what you believe about your political opponents, then debating about politics is probably a waste of your time.