What Trump, the modern GOP, and the shooters have in common: They see themselves as victims.
E.W. Jackson believes it’s the demonization of white people by liberals, not white supremacy, that is radicalizing mass shooters.
It’s definitely counterintuitive that members of the Fox-Trump-GOP view themselves as victims—but they do.
Prof. Jason Stanley explains: The dominant group feels victimized by encroaching equality because the dominant group believes that nature forms a hierarchy.
Thus when “inferior” groups seek equality, the dominant group thinks the inferior group want to displace them at the top. What’s actually happening, of course, is that the oppressed groups want equality.
If people hold a hierarchal view of nature, the demand for equality feels threatening, because they think the people demanding equality are actually trying to achieve power over them. They feel that they’re losing something.
This feeling of loss has been explained in different ways by numerous scholars and theorists in various fields. See, for example, Harvard Prof. Levitsky, here, and Hofstadter, here.
Here Prof. Stanley responds to Tucker Carlson’s latest bit of nonsense:
This is explains Trump’s habit of confronting the worst tragedies in America by making himself the victim:
Once you start looking for victimization, you see all through the Trump-FOX-GOP statements. Here was Trump characterizing himself as a victim of Mueller and what he sees as irrational hatred of him:
One more example: Jeet Here called it a persecution complex, and was amazed that even when they win, they think they were crucified:
They see themselves and victims and want to roll us back to the time when white men ruled. It makes perfect sense to them.
What do we do? We will have to do the work of rolling everything forward again.
American history shows us patterns: The reactionaries work to roll us backwards, the progressives work to roll us forward.
Will it be hard? Certainly.
This time, though, we know how to do it. Susan B. Anthony, Thurgood Marshall, and many others taught us how.
Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall (in his career as a civil rights lawyer), MLK Jr., and others were up against the same foes.
It’s the same story.
