Sunday, August 14, 2022

The Victim Mentality, Revisited

One the province of Liberals, the victim mentality defines the post-Trump GOP.  It's all about the grievances, people!

A lot has changed since I started writing this blog over a decade ago.  Back then, the Democrats were out of power and had a list of grievances against them.  They were all victims of society, prejudice, and the very wealthy!  Well, today they still are, but the Republicans have jumped on the victim bandwagon and are riding it to this day.

In a way, this is part of the classic Trump switcharoo, or the "I'm rubber, you're glue, bounces off me and sticks to you!" which sounds like a childish taunt that Trump would actually say as an adult.  It works, though, and every major demagogue throughout history has used it.  I'm a crook?  No, she's the crook! Lock her up!    We see how that is playing out.  Projection much?

So it was a natural for Trump to engage in victim politics in a bigley way.   He complained to be a victim of just about everything, from the press coverage during his campaign, to the Park Police head-count of his inauguration "crowd."  Everything and everyone was against him, and he constantly whined about how unfair the world was.  Like a small child, really.

The victim mentality is part and parcel of Externalization and it is handy to have when you want to blame others for your woes.  Whether you are a 20-something stoner living in your mother's basement or a 70-something three-time loser living in Marjorie Merriweather Post's old mansion, the effect is the same.  Nothing is ever your fault. But for external forces, you would be successful.  Everyone is unfair to me!  It gets tiring after a while.

But even if Trump fades into the sunset (let's hope - the guy is almost as old as Biden!) the victim mentality and the grievance lists of the GOP will continue unabated.  And this is troubling for the "Party of Personal Responsibility(tm)" as they are looking and less like like a party of principles (that ship sailed years ago) and more of a party of opportunity.  Do anything, say anything, to get in power and stay in power.  Something they accused Democrats of, years ago.

The big problem for the GOP is that their aging demographic of Baby Boomers is dying off to the tune of about 8,000 a day - and not being replenished by a younger crowd.  There are just not that many College Republicans (who for some reason, are all in their late 20's).   When the Boomers are gone, the next largest demographic will be the Millennials, and they may be far less inclined to vote Republican.

So it becomes apparent why the GOP and CPAC have dropped all pretenses and embraced Civil War as a means of political change.  CPAC has actually endorsed terrorism at this point.  The bus is going off a cliff as we speak and everyone is thinking that maybe it isn't so bad.

And of course, if  you call them out on this, they say it is just a joke - an attempt to "own the libs" and whatnot.  But of course, it ain't the libs being "owned" as of late - people are going to jail and even dying for their false God and it appears more may be in the works.

All because people want to play the victim card - when in fact, they are really victims of nothing but their own malfeasace.