I've been thinking about the most insidious aspects of right wing rhetoric

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

And I've been looking at transcripts, listening to talk radio, watching cable (yes, I will accept all sympathy). They've begun to appropriate the victimage rhetoric of liberal politics.

Now, before I get taken to task, let me say something about victimage rhetoric. The best of this rhetoric does its job: it illumines for the public real victims in this world--not theoretical victims but real victims. What di I mean by this? To use a cheap, easy example: when Justin Timberlake tore the clothes off of Janet jackson, there was a whole slew of articles written about the disturbing aspect of the staged violence against a woman. O.K., fine, on an academic level, I get it.

But we cannot equate that act with real violence; one is staged the other takes years of therapy.

O.K., all this being said, I fear that the right is attempting to blur all positions of victimage. They've done their Nietzsche homework (something I warned progressive think tanks about YEARS ago). They do this not to create themselves as victims (though this is a bonus), but to take away the victim card, to blur all lines of victimage, to make indeterminate the status of victim in our society. And sometimes, unfortunately, we help their cause (but that's another post).

Moral equivocation is their game. Making victimizers the victims is their game. Ohhhh, the poor richest 5% of the U.S.

They're taking another page out of the liberal playbook (and if you think we take the side victims and tell their stories out of pure altruism, well, then, perhaps it's fitting we are being ruled by the freeper class).

Let's face it, everyone in America loves being the victim. It's part of our underdog narrative. The right is now tapping into this more than ever. And, even more frightening, they've begun to comine this narrative with their "rugged individual" narrative. Nietzsche would be VERY afraid.

Just some thoughts.

G.U.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

1. Very interesting thoughts.

I think you're right, here. Conservatives have made themselves the victims in practically every area, and have fashioned in their minds a whole list of enemies that threaten them (the liberal media, the ACLu, George Soros, college campuses, activist judges, etc). The universe has flipped upside down.

[maggrwaggr]

8. yes, who was it who wrote about the "anguish" or paying high taxes?

I think it was Ann Coulter and she was, well, as serious as she ever gets (I honestly don't believe she believes her own bullshit, but that's another story).

I work with and around a lot of extremely wealthy people and the one thing they DON'T fucking need is tax relief.

[mn9driver]

2. Playing the "ain't it awful" game is human nature

Carrying it to the absurd extremes of the vocal far right is either delusional or just plain old lying. Their intention is to co-opt those who feel they haven't received their just rewards. It's a lot easier to justify not being able to afford that new Dodge Ram pickup because "I'm a Victim!" than to look at my shitty paycheck/job/life through the lens of free will and consequential choices.

[DavidMS]

9. I feel they are just being whiny

and need passifiers.

As opposed to actualy properly placing the blame and moving on.

Or they just get off on it. Don't know which.

The worst part is some guy is peroperly charged a progresive tax and whines that he is paying more proportionaly than some guy makng minimum wage. Of cource in absolute terms he sitll makes more...

Someone get them security blankies.

[Lucky Luciano]

3. The 'rugged individual narrative'

I know exactly what you mean...I often called this "Macho Conservatism." You know the types - working class guys with beer bellies in sports bars chanting "USA USA USA USA!" while watching Iraq war coverage on the TV sets. This comprises a good chunk of b*sh's conservative base. These are the stereotypical blue collar guys that "patriotically" vote against their best interests because it is more "macho" to be conservative with all the rhetoric/propaganda that the conservatives have for the war, the military and their ilk.

I saw a prime example of this in Hollywood the other day. I was going to a club wehre some friends were DJing and along the way, there was a vigil at Ronald Reagan's star on the Walk of Fame. The guy who set it up was a poster child for the guy described above as he held his American flag upright and proud. I still have no idea why people get so worked up about symbols like the flag. True patriotism comes from something much deeper than a mere symbol.

[maggrwaggr]

7. Meyers-Briggs, basic temperment types

Conservatives appeal to the "guardian" temperament, and these people (who make up, I believe, something like 38% of the population) need heirarchy, leaders, structure, and they are very much into little symbols like medals, certificates, trophies, and the like.

The flag plays into that mentality.

[rumguy]

4. I think you're on to something

[Cat Atomic]

5. It's nothing new. My own favorite form of conservative victimhood is

the "besieged Christian" line.

Many conservatives will anxiously talk about the hordes of liberals and atheists laying siege to Christianity. To hear them tell it, American Christians are suffering persecution and repression at the hands of government- just like the Christians in ancient Rome.

Until you mention taking references to god out of the government. Then the argument is flipped 180 degrees. Suddenly the US is a country of devout Christians, and atheists should not demand changes, because they're only a tiny minority.

I've actually heard the same person make both arguments in the space of 5 minutes. It's very strange.

[riverwalker]

6. the "persecution" of Christians in America

It was very clear to me when Limbaughs idiot brother came out with a book about how Christians are so very persecuted (?????) in the US. He was trying to capitalize on the victim appeal for the reich wing with this "issue" and failed miserably.

[Lucky Luciano]

11. LOL

I like that: "The Reich Wing"

I like my term for rumsfeld. I call him the Secretary of Offense because he is both offensive and he goes about war more as offense as an empire would rather than defense.

[ewagner]

Excellent Post!

I agree with a great deal of your premises.

When I had to listen to about an hour per day of Limbaugh, the victimage rhetoric was very noticeable. (although in truth, I didn't call it that.) The rhetoric of the right makes a grand assumption that their beliefs are the only ones that any American should subscribe to and that those beliefs are under attack from the rather nebulous "Liberals", or, more often, the ubiquitous "they".

Their minions are energized and mobilized under the guise that there is a concerted, organized effort by us liberals to take something away from them hence creating "all true Americans" as a class of victims.

[maggrwaggr]

12. it's all part of creating "enemies"

Our propagandists today create enemies for the public who needs them.

It used to be the commies. Once that was over, they started on the "liberals".

Now it's the "terrorists".

You don't really have an enemy unless you have serious potential for victimization.

So yes, being "victimized" is all part of their game.

[ewagner]

10. dupe...self deleted

[markses]

13. I read a chapter making that extends and complicates that argument

Several years ago in a book called "Alterity Politics" (can't remember the author, but it was a helluva book). The chapter was something like "Nietzsche and the Angry White Men," something like that. Yes, the Nietzsche angle, particularly from "On the Genealogy of Morals" is right on.

The bad way of handling this shift (which is actually about 30 years old) is to cry out: "Oh, but they're not REALLY victims! We are." For Nietzsche, this would be like little lambs vying for being the most delectable little lamb - together with the complete displacement of birds of prey (Nietzsche's point is not this simple, of course. Nietzsche saw the whole development of morality as a "slave revolt" and wanted to do away with it, but this doesn't mean that he favored the "masters" over the slaves - or worse, as the ignorant among us believe, operated as a kind of proto-Nazi; the so-called masters and slaves are all playing out their hatred of life). But the more important point may be that the political and rhetorical utility of victim narratives has diappeared; while these certainly served a purpose for some time (say, the civil rights movement, 1945-1975), they may be useless now. Which means, of course, that we have to develop new strategies.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

15. You're both right and wrong, markses.

As was Michel Foucault (I'm assuming that's the man in the picture and not an emmaciated Uncle Fester--I got to meet Professor Foucault before he died).

You are absolutely correct when you state:

"Oh, but they're not REALLY victims! We are." For Nietzsche, this would be like little lambs vying for being the most delectable little lamb - together with the complete displacement of birds of prey (Nietzsche's point is not this simple, of course. Nietzsche saw the whole development of morality as a "slave revolt" and wanted to do away with it, but this doesn't mean that he favored the "masters" over the slaves - or worse, as the ignorant among us believe, operated as a kind of proto-Nazi; the so-called masters and slaves are all playing out their hatred of life).

I love your first line. Here at DU, every one other than the one who is posting is the ultimate victim. Everyone else is the perpetrator. And, yes, I realize that I participate in this mechanism even as I ackowledge it. We all need our victimizers, I suppose (and this does not mean that there are REAL victimizers out there; I'm critiquing the way in which we play the "my victimizer is bigger than your victimizer game."

I think your analysis is spot on. But there is also a limitation to it; this limitation represents both Nietzsche and Foucault's blind spot: the victimage mechanism is the foundation of human culture. Once it's gone (and this is inevitable) we have nothing else to turn to. We have to reveal the mechanism for what it is: a way of instituting temporary order--that's it. We have too much faith in the mechanism of scapegoats, because that's all this is, we are doomed.

This is why I am often frightened here at DU. People here are too smart to particpate uncounsciously in this mechanism, yet many of them still do (though they are the dumber members of DU). Political expediency is one thing; but it is wholly other if one really begins to believe in the victimage rhetoric utilized here.

Great post, markses.

[checks-n-balances]

14. This has been an interesting discussion, but scary, too

This victimhood idea has many uses, at least by the right wing:

- The KKK/Identity/Skinhead movement has always exploited the anger/frustrations of poor rural whites who have lost out financially, and provides them with scapegoats to blame and hate. Lots of this in the early '80's when Reaganomics caused so many to lose their farms.

- It gets the unwanted & undesirable factions of society a "seat at the table" - e.g., conservative/reactionary "victims" propagating the myth of "liberal media" which now approaches almost total corporate control.

- The obvious "place at the table" has been the conservative "victims" left out of the inner political circles ("The Democrats have contolled congress for over 40 years...") and look where they are now.

- As someone else said, "persecuted Christians" (in other countries, maybe; this one, NO!) play that game too. We know who will soon be persecuting whom if they continue to gain in power.

- To gain sympathy from the general public by demonizing those different from them ("those liberals just want to tear down our country")

- To rollback gains like equal opportunity employment/affirmative action by accusing individuals & institutions of "quotas" and claiming victimhood as a result of these laws and initiatives

It's a great rallying cry and the insidiousness of all this is about to make me sick thinking about it. Democrats get accused of "class warfare", but it's clear that these games involve the rich manipulating the poor, and the powerful grabbing for more power. And the powerful using the powerless to join their "team" to swell their ranks but not really to help them (e.g., middle & lower class voting against their own interests). It's so cynical and it's sad how so many people are manipulated, used, and thrown away.

The recurring theme here seems to be POWER (not surprising). The right wing itself is insidious, IMHO.

[troublemaker]

16. The entire modern American conservative movement arises from

losing the Civil War and losing Civil War II (1955-1975 Civil Rights era) as surely as Nazism arose from losing WWI. It's always sounded like a bunch of whining and adolescent death-obsession to me.

The only thing that's spared our nation so far is that these assholes are so in love with glorious failure that they tend to fail... and dramatically.