Monday, July 06, 2009

The Pathology of Victimhood

Josh Marshall at TPM has an interesting snippet today on the way that Palin has built her entire career around victimhood at the hands of liberals, elites and even David Letterman: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/can_i_get_a_witness.php. This seems to go with the general pathology of conservatives, who were victims even when they controlled the levers of government for most of the past 40 years. Now that they have fallen momentarily in the hinterlands of their own construction, it is interesting to see them further embrace this notion of victimhood. They are victims of the “liberal” media, victims of liberal professors, victims of liberal elites who listen to NPR and drink lattes, victims of reverse discrimination from women and minorities, victims of gays and their perverse lifestyles and victims of illegal immigrants who are taking all the good jobs in America (cutting lawns, bussing our tables, cooking our food, taking care of our children, etc.) The victim mentality was first harnessed to some success by Richard Nixon and his incantation to the “silent majority,” but reached fever pitch under Reagan – who redefined the elites as those who actually cared about knowledge and truth (see Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas).

But the persistence and growth of this pathology has only amplified under Bush and now those on the outside looking in. Palin is a good example. When she was interviewed by a surprisingly tough Charlie Gibson after being chosen for VP, it was her fault that she didn’t seem to know much about anything of importance. When her teenage daughter got pregnant, again showing the lapsed “morality” of much of the Christian right, it was the media’s fault for bringing up this painful family problem. And now that she makes a near insane choice to leave office 18 months early for no real discernible reason (except to starting running for president really early), it is the media’s fault that they haven’t embraced this decision without question. This weekend I had the opportunity to speak with some sensible and less sensible conservatives, and what strikes me is how far the radical right has moved from any semblance of semblance. They truly have become the lunatic fringe, still blaming Clinton for some of our problems, claiming Obama’s presidency has already failed and that we can’t look back at Bush when discussing the deficit or financial crisis (even though they constantly look backwards for blame), claiming global warming is a corporate conspiracy to make money, etc., etc., etc. I only hope this implosion continues into the distant future; it is a lovely spectacle to witness.

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