Privilege is the sin that must be checked so that the marginalized can continue their long march to freedom. In an empathetic society, victimhood and powerlessness becomes its own kind of power. A large part of understanding these processes lies in the power of victimhood. These identities are placeholders for suffering and signs of the justice of one’s cause. We need to distinguish between victimhood itself and the politics of victimhood – the process whereby suffering is fabricated or conferred, and then ‘weaponized’ for political purposes. That all makes it difficult territory for progressives, who believe real injustice happens every day and should be highlighted and resolved. Progressives must remain cognizant about the allure of victimhood politics. Today we have identity politics of aggressively competing victimhood, in which groups of people, based on religious, national, ethnic, sexual, or whatever else identity they chose, demand to have their victimhood status recognized and something done about it.
Populists like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, or some Brexit campaigners, construct fantasies of past national greatness and belonging to instil audiences with a sense of pride and nostalgia. At the same time, these political entrepreneurs use rhetoric that targets feelings of resentment and anger, representing themselves and their audiences as victims of the establishment. Populists promote an emotive politics of outrage which manipulates public sentiments for political gain and underwrites a radical departure from established political norms. Populist appeals to victimhood are used to assign blame with elites in politics, businesses, and media for a sense of loss and marginalization, for national decline from past imagined glories, and to foster political conflict. “Stories shape our feelings toward others and ourselves, toward what is right and wrong, and populist security narratives grip voters through their deep-seated emotional appeal” explains Dr Homolar.1
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was widely viewed as a kind of populist revolt against the Washington establishment. As a candidate, the billionaire promised voters that he would take on the elite and fight for the “forgotten men and women” of America, and promoted himself as a man of the people. Yet after becoming president Trump did virtually nothing to improve the lot of ordinary Americans who work for a living. In fact, his administration’s policies had, for the most part, benefited people like President Trump – the super-rich – while hurting working class Americans. According to John Judis the exact designation of the terms: ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ don’t define populism; what defines it is the disagreement or argument between the two – or in the case of right-wing populism the three, as right-wing populists “champion the people against an elite that they accuse of favoring a third group,” which is typically an outsider group such as immigrants, foreigners or minorities.
Why is being a victim such a potent identity today? Lilie Chouliaraki identifies a theory of victimhood based on, what she calls, a “politics of pain” and argues that even though victimhood has historically been used in struggles for equality and freedom for the systemically vulnerable, social media platforms and far-right populism have turned victimhood into a weapon of the privileged. This absolves elites from the neoliberal burden of responsibility. Basically, victimization rhetoric heightens leader support because it specifically relieves followers of the pressure of having to take responsibility for negative life outcomes, especially when they subscribe to neoliberal competition ideology. Being granted victim status can remove some pressure to “win the game.” If the competition is unfair, one cannot be blamed for losing it. Thus, a leader who acknowledges the victimhood of individuals who subscribe to neoliberal competition ideology relieves these individuals from the burden of having to take responsibility for negative outcomes in their lives.2
White Americans who perceive significant discrimination against their racial group are more likely to harbor doubts about the integrity of election outcomes, according to new research published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. The findings provide evidence that feelings of victimization are an important predictor of increased skepticism towards the democratic process: “Political elites, especially those associated with the MAGA movement, have implicitly and explicitly cultivated such grievances. This is a very dangerous game to play: democracy depends on citizens believing that institutions are generally fair and that even if their side loses today, they will get a fair chance to compete tomorrow.” Perceived victimhood, authoritarianism, populism, and white identity are the most powerful predictors of support for political violence in the US. Subjective feelings about being unjustly victimized (whether true or not) is at the heart of support for violence.
Trump’s victim politics is a complete fraud, an old trick used by economic elite for years to keep working-class Americans fighting each other rather than focusing on processes to counter the plutocrats who are ripping them off. Trump and his allies stoke racial tensions even as they seek to cut taxes on the rich by shedding affordable health care for everyone else, dismantle protection for workers and consumers, and tear down environmental protections that stop wealthy corporations from poisoning communities. Victim politics is cultivated for a reason – to keep workers distracted from the real causes of economic inequality. Populism is the new victimhood – now propelled by the digital revolution and the threatened insecurity. We need to distinguish between victimhood itself and the politics of victimhood – the process whereby suffering is confected or conferred, and then ‘weaponized’ for political purposes.
Over the decade prior to Trump’s victory, Steve Bannon developed an intricate multi-media machine into a sophisticated propaganda operation. Bannon identified Trump as being capable of delivering the ‘populist-nationalist idea’, and build a system to support the traditionalist movement to protect American culture. The alt-right coalesced around the Breitbart message: eight years of an African-American president had left whites disenfranchised. Breitbart and the Drudge Report moved views from the fringe into mainstream media via Fox news and Facebook. Breitbart helped focus election coverage on Trump’s immigration and grandiose job-creation rhetoric, and direct attention away from Clinton’s economic message and towards her email scandal. Bannon’s efforts, along with the Russian troll factories, recruited the necessary voting block needed to eke out an Electoral College victory – turned on little more than 100,000 votes in three crucial states that he won: Wisconsin, Michigan and Wisconsin.
In an individualistic consumer society, there is a strong focus on rights. Along with these rights are expectations of entitlement to goods and services. In complaining, the individual establishes an image of himself that he knows what’s going on (even if it is wrong) and therefore establishes an image of himself as alert and knowledgeable. Complaining amidst a group of like-minded whiners forges a sense of togetherness and community. Donald Trump complained about unfair treatment since, well, pretty much since the beginning of his 2016 campaign. Trump is completely committed to complaining about being a victim. According to him, he’s misunderstood, mistreated, persecuted, falsely accused and unfairly punished. Trump is the complainer in chief, but tells Democrats who complain to leave the country. Cynical populism has created a cult of victimhood that dominates today’s politics. Trump played the victim card – basically the only card he has in his deck – during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump harnessed the resentment and sense of victimhood of the Republican Party. Trump comes across unceasingly pained, injured and aggrieved: the primaries were unfair, the debates were unfair, the general election was unfair. He gave a voice to that part of America that also feels aggrieved. Trump claims there is a conspiracy against him supported by ‘fake’ news. Today Trump’s paranoid third White House run continues to see ‘deep state’ enemies on all sides. He became the representative of the idea of the new whiny right: waning power of whiteness, privilege, patriarchy, access, and the cultured surety that accrues to those in possession of such. Trump who wants to restrict the overall number of immigrants argues allowing lower-skilled immigrants into the country hurts job prospects and suppresses wages for American-born workers. Trump has staked his future on stoking racial division so that he can emerge as the hero of the ‘victimized’ whites.
Marcuse argued that “capitalism and mass culture shape personal desires” so there is no essential or unchanging aspect to human nature. Mass culture results in domination of “the inner world of the human subject”. A man under capitalism is “one dimensional” since he bears no trace of the conflicts which make him multi-dimensional and capable of change. This is why Marcuse believes that people under Liberal Western capitalism are no freer than people under totalitarian role, their oppression is just transparent. For Marcuse the one-dimensional man is closely related to both consumerism and mass media that together serve as an ideological apparatus which reproduces itself through its subjects. This apparatus promotes conformity and is aimed at preventing resistance. The person who thinks critically demands social change. One-dimensional thinking does not demand change nor does it recognize the degree to which the individual is a victim of forces of domination in society.3
1 https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/researchers_point_to/
2 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12932
3 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/#OneDimThiDemRejDem