Jebus, stop trying to find a single group to blame, it’s the entire god damn American public that’s at fault.
White, Latino, Blacks, Asians, men, women, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, everyone in America knew who Trump and Republicans are and screwed the pooch and the entirety of America.
It’s an insult for being to sympathetic/empathetic and soft.
Ultimately meaning that if push came to shove, a bleeding heart would be so caught up in caring that they would fail to make a tough decision.
Its not just that. Its refering to people expressing extreme performative empathy, backed up self serving or useless actions. There are liberal grifters out there, just like there are conservative ones, and the phrase is used to label a person as one of them.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bleeding-heart-phrase-origin-meaning
The word’s always been pretty straightforward. I’ve never seen it mean anything performative. It’s always just a soft and empathetic person to a harmful degree.
The way its used in conservative circles in the 21st and late 20nd centuries does mean that they see the empathy as performative and either self serving or naive, not that they think the person simply cares too much. Up until about a decade ago they might have even seen empathy as a noble trait, as long as it was backed up by personal action.
Based on your response, I’m guessing you didn’t read about the history of the phrase that I linked, which explains what it meant and how it was used in the early, mid, and late 20th century. As well as the 21st century.
Just because you think something means something doesn’t mean it’s true.