Unending sense of victimhood

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported the GOP of the Arizona state Senate has authorized another “audit” of the November election results for Maricopa County. I’m pretty sure at least one official audit has been done, but the GOP didn’t like them because they didn’t find the fraud they claim is there. This will not go well. This “audit” appears designed to create fraud. The Senate issued a subpoena to seize all 2.1 million ballots in the county. They’ve turned them over to a company called Cyber Ninjas. Here are the problems. * The company has zero experience in elections. * The company head has tweeted election conspiracy theories. * The workers were issued blue pens – which is illegal because the ballot scanning machines read blue ink. * They have the use of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the company’s security is lax and has already been breached. * The source of funding is from extreme right One America News and others who want the GOP to win. * The count will be livestreamed, though reporters have limited access. The Democratic Party sued to stop the effort. A hearing was set for Monday. On the previous Friday a judge ordered a pause over the weekend – if Democrats would put up a $1 million bond to cover expenses due to the pause. The party refused. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed why the nasty guy’s voter’s love him so much and that the GOP is trying to continue that love, to the point that it is their only policy. The nasty guy voters were not working class. The majority earned income well above the national median income. Their education level was not much different than those who voted for previous GOP candidates. Dartagnan discussed an article by Thomas Edsall in the New York Times. Dartagnan wrote:

It is a psychology of injured pride and fear of lost status, an unending sense of victimhood, carefully prodded and cultivated—most visibly by Trump himself since taking office, and now adopted by the rest of the Republican Party as their sole political strategy going forward.

Edsall referenced a research paper by Alexandra Homolar and Georg Lofflmann. Dartagnan quoted the abstract, then translated:

In more simple terms, by constantly stoking this over-arching narrative of perpetual victimhood, a demagogue such as Trump (or anyone else) can motivate his followers to reject the very tools of democratic governance that a country such as the U.S. relies on to resolve political differences.

Dartagnan continued:

These legislators are duplicitous—and in most cases, knowingly so. But as things currently stand, they know that any departure from the victimhood narrative will be met with howls of outrage by their constituents. So they will continue to parrot it, because as Trump amply demonstrated, the tactic works. As astounding as it is, white Republican voters, who by many objective measures are some of the most privileged, pampered people in the world, now consider themselves as victims. As Edsall carefully emphasizes, this does not mean that Trump voters are actual victims. ... It’s why Fox News and other right-wing media organs continually diminish and dismiss the concerns of genuinely marginalized communities. The brand of “victimhood” hawked by Fox News and its ilk is rooted in social status, and tied to a sense of entitlement, not actual rights.

A group taught to feel victimized and humiliated, turns away from collaboration and turns towards leaders who feed its sense of grievance. And the nasty guy fed that grievance with every word he spoke. It didn’t matter that actual policies didn’t address real problems. Edsall also quoted Miles Armaly from the University of Mississippi and Adam Enders of the University of Louisville. There are systemic victims, those actually oppresssed, and egocentric victims. Armaly and Enders wrote:

Egocentric victims feel that they never get what they deserve in life, never get an extra break, and are always settling for less.

Such people don’t acknowledge personal responsibility of their situation. That prevents working out a solution. What they want is more fuel for their grievances. Dartagnan wrote:

That explains why Republicans are more or less united in opposing Democratic efforts to provide COVID-19 relief, and feel compelled even to oppose any efforts to improve the nation’s infrastructure. They don’t want things to improve, because if things improve they will have to find something else for their constituents to feel victimized about. That’s the only glue holding Republicans together. ... Edsall doesn’t offer any specific solutions on how Democrats can combat this strategy, which essentially requires Democrats to convince these people that their grievances are imaginary and being cynically manipulated for political purposes.

So Democrats must focus on protecting voter rights and doing everything possible to get high voter turnout. Phrases such as “lost status” and “sense of entitlement” and “the most privileged, pampered people” who “consider themselves as victims” describes for me people who have been told they are supposed to be at the top of the social hierarchy and aren’t or feel their position in the hierarchy is threatened. Playing the victim is a supremacy thing. Orion Rodriguez of Kos Prism discussed the alarming rise in bills that ban transition for transgender youth or ban transgender women from women’s sports. He wrote:

These laws are designed to erroneously conflate social and medical transition, and criminalize any attempts by supportive adults to affirm the trans youth in their lives. The “problem” they claim to solve doesn’t exist. Their only aim is to inflict psychological damage on trans and gender-nonconforming children as well as threaten and prevent adults for affirming their children’s identities. ... The current slate of laws is shocking due to the sheer number of proposed bills, but while they are cruel, they’re also limited in scope. This is only the first step, and it’s still possible for trans activists and allies to push back before they become established precedent. Activists are engaging in efforts to convince lawmakers not to pass these bills and combat misinformation among the general public. But if these bills pass successfully and are not overturned in court, they will continue to shift the goalposts until it is no longer safe for any trans people to exist in public, regardless of their age.

And they’ll start in on gay people. Michael Harriot has a few things to say about race and police. In one thread he said that white people (at least as a group) have never been right when the discussion is race so why do we listen to them? His examples include slaughtering American natives while calling them savages and stealing Africans and calling them uncivilized.

Historically and presently, if white PEOPLE collectively push a narrative, it is ALWAYS, ALWAYS wrong. ... Well, race in America is the only topic in which the opinion of people with no expertise, experience, or education will be juxtaposed with people who study work in and live the reality of white supremacy.

In another thread he reviews the evidence: Police kill black people at a rate of 6.6 per million, white people at a rate of 2.5 per million. The killings have nothing to do with crime or violence and nothing to do with danger. White people are more likely to have contraband in their car. White people own more guns. White people are more likely to resist arrest. But when they do, they don’t get shot. The shootings have nothing to do with poverty – the second highest targeted group is rich black men.

No one is saying cops are hunting Black people. BUT COPS ARE HUNTING BLACK PEOPLE. Math is saying it. The research shows it. The science proves it. There is literally no other explanation for it. Police shootings don't correlate to crime rates, income, drug use, violence, danger or any other factor. JUST RACE.

In a third thread Harriot wrote ...

I know we like to focus on unarmed victims but it’s crazy how often Cops shoot people with knives, screwdrivers & even nail files FROM AFAR all the time. They don’t even have to deescalate the situation. Aside from people in prison, no one is out here stabbing cops to death. And when I say “no one,” I mean it literally. According to @washingtonpost, Since 2015, cops shot & killed 1,074 people “armed” with knives. Wanna guess how many cops (outside prison) died from stabbing since then? Zero.