This article is liberal commentary.
Victimhood is an essential piece of conservative mythology which plays a key role in mobilizing the right. Conservative propaganda labors to manufacture a strong sense of grievance among adherents, seeking to convince them they’re victims of profound mistreatment — by elites, the “deep state,” liberals and Democrats, even the media. The right’s propaganda warriors seek to create a belief among susceptible followers they’re being overwhelmed by satanic forces. Those forces have names, of course: Hillary Clinton, George Soros, “Antifa,” etc.
Examples abound. Only yesterday, Fox News shrieker Tucker Carlson compared Trump getting Covid-19 to being a victim of sexual assault. Back in May, during the darkest days of the pandemic, a far more level-headed journalist, Ryan Cooper, wrote in The Week that Trump’s “appalling failure” to manage the Covid-19 crisis was morphing into “another vent for bottomless grievance, and fuel for a screeching victimhood complex.” In other words, shriekers turned a genuine national crisis into another “culture wars” battlefield, refusing to wear masks or social distance as acts of defiance against the system. A little over a month ago, a clinical psychologist in Birmingham, Alabama, named Alan Blotky wrote in a commentary for Raw Story that
“Trump uses victimhood as a means of manipulating and exploiting others. Whenever he fails or is caught in a lie or does something corrupt, he reflexively twists it around and blames others … then claims he is the victim. … Trump has tweeted the phrase ‘Presidential harassment’ 37 times in the past 2 years.”
When a Nick Sandmann (“MAGA hat kid”) or Kyle Rittenhouse engages in acts of aggression, the shriekers unfailingly cast them as victims, and they become conservative heroes. Writing in Counterpunch, Thomas Knapp described Sandmann as the right’s “poster child for fake victimhood.” NBC News reported the Trump administration instructed federal law enforcement officials “to make public comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse.”
I don’t pay any attention to the cacophony of noise coming from the shriekers; but I do pay attention to the fact millions of gullible Americans pay attention to it, and it’s a major cause of severe social and political dysfunction in our democracy.
Latest example: Writing for the Murdoch-owned rightwing New York Post, shrieker Michael Goodwin complained on Saturday, October 3, 2020, about “The left’s sickening lack of decency on ailing President Trump.” Actually, all the major Democratic figures have wished the president and first lady well, and publicly hoped for their speedy and full recovery. The objects of Goodwin’s ire are the Global Times and New York Times. Their offenses? Writing that Trump’s bout of Covid-19 may “negatively affect his re-election” and “could prove devastating to his political fortunes,” respectively, which looks suspiciously like objective reporting to me.
Goodwin, of course, isn’t a reputable journalist. He’s a propagandist who works for rightwing outlets like the New York Post and Fox News churning out grievance pieces with titles like “Here’s what Dems’ extreme partisanship costs the country” and “Poor Biden, looks like he’s got a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” (see sampling here). Goodwin’s piece above referencing “decency” is especially notable for its sheer hypocrisy; Trump is the epitome of lack of decency. But mentioning that, of course, would trigger another round of grievances driven by the right’s deeply ingrained sense of victimhood.
I can do analogies, too: These people are like the burglar who shot a 90-year-old homeowner in the jaw, and then sued the homeowner for shooting back at him.
Why even bother thinking about, writing about, or talking about people who are so patently dishonest, and manufacture political dysfunction in order to turn it into a money-making industry, which after all is the real purpose of all this?
Because there has always been a question, and doubts, about whether democracy and freedom can work. China’s leaders don’t think so; they tightly control what can be printed or spoken in that country, and criticizing the ruling party is out of bounds. (Not surprisingly, China has a severe corruption problem.) In America, the jury is still out; after several decades of untrammeled free expression by liars, conspiracy theorists, and nutjobs, amplified by the internet and social media, our democratic system is on the brink of implosion — not since 1860 have we been so polarized and at each other’s throats, has there been less intelligent discussion of policy decisions, or have so many Americans hated so many other Americans with so much passion.
According to rightwing grievance merchants, this is, of course, entirely the fault of liberal elites, professors, journalists, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and “Antifa.” Trump’s lies, corruption, and incompetence are invisible to them, and mentioning them makes him a victim in their minds — a victim not of his own excesses, but of those who think excess is a bad thing even in a free society.
Victimhood is used by politicians of both parties, It is an easy sell. Probably after than presenting solutions, or how will govern, and what that means in terms of taxes, jobs, ect. Shrieking also ignores how the system is put together and the levers of power.
Any Presidents ability to manage a pandemic is very limited. The 50 governors of states hold the actual power. Many are in fact using methods that are likely unconstitutional. This maybe the prime reason why for the first time in any pandemic or health crises that many measures have never been used. No governor or the President has a lever of power making an epidemic to go away. Hiding or diminishing a pandemic until a cure or vaccine is available may be the best any politician can do. The Greeks argued that leaders must lie to the people at times when wielding power.
A small number of American citizens are killed by the police every year. A much smaller number of citizens are unarmed, and all these killings are outliers when looking at the total number of inter actions between police and citizens. Every killing is tragic. The numbers are small so there may or may not be some role race plays. There is BLM but it is unrealistic to expect police killings to stop, this could be a banner year in fact. So plenty of outrage with high expectations, but no voices within to temper expectations particularly when reasonable people can look at the events and conclude the police officers involved are imperfect, but do not deserve punishment from the state.
Heralding a banner year for police violence?
How about a moral compass adjustment?
Do not speak for others, especially people with a sense of right, wrong and moral justice.
Many people are offended by police officers placing a knee to a person’s neck(“I can’t breathe”) until they not only cannot breathe they die right there on the scene. That is more than imperfect that is deserving of punishment.
U.S. police kill about 1,000 civilians a year; British police kill 1 or 2 people a year. Their experience suggests police killings aren’t inevitable and there’s room for improvement on our end.