Sanders, Trump, and the Cult of Victimization

The year is 2016.

When people act like cavemen, in ‘unevolved’ sorts of ways, it is inevitable that someone is always there to ask “What year are we living in?” meaning, there is something allegedly shocking to a person of reason about how slowly large groups of people evolve socially over time. As Donald Trump grows closer to securing the Republican nomination, he continues to indirectly but not so subtly pander to the racist, misogynistic (largely) uneducated white voters who are not above rising to violence who happen to think Trump’s presidency will ‘change things.’ The question is, what is it Trump supporters hope to change? It’s not like a whole lot of racist, misogynistic (largely) uneducated white voters haven’t benefited from the status quo for, well, pretty much all of American history.

And that’s just it; for Trump supporters, what they are hoping to change is the direction in

which the country is changing. Trump’s overwhelmingly white supporters see the writing on the wall; for example, they’re currently under attack spiritually as the number of diverse religions grow within U.S. borders. Heaven forbid a Christian from Bala’ama be forced to share the street with a non-Christian! (For the sake of brevity, now replace ‘Christian’ and ‘non-Christian’ with ‘white folk’ and ‘people of color,’ ‘men’ and ‘women,’ ‘the uncultured and illiterate’ and ‘a gay from New York,’ etc.) Of course, least we forget that the Mexicans are stealing jobs Americans don’t want to do. Somehow, Trump supporters feel victimized by the growing number of people who don’t think conservative white men should be allowed to keep victimizing people the way they have for over 200 years now. Oddly, if there is anything Trump supporters should be fighting, it’s the narrative of victimization that seems to be the driving force in the lives of U.S. citizens these days.

The middling success of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is indicative of this narrative. People of Color, gays, Millennials, left-of-left leaning liberals and people who don’t want another Clinton in the White House are flocking to a socialist who sounds like a Sweathog from Welcome Back Kotter. While blacks more than any other group of minorities have suffered from institutionalized racism (Native American aren’t around much to persecute anymore), it is hard to see why they think a frazzle-haired Jewish president would suddenly make them equal in the eyes of conservative white men, seeing how Obama’s presidency hasn’t helped much. Really, though, blacks and gays are the only groups of people who have truly been victimized throughout U.S. history, though it is arguable the LGBT community has had a great deal more success in being accepted. Meanwhile, Millennials and left-of-left leaning liberals feel victimized by being born into a culture that is largely a meritocracy. People who don’t want another Clinton in the White House feel victimized by the lack of Whole Foods supermarkets in their neighborhood (that are owned by a Republican by-the-way).

What both sides have in common is that they feel victimized by the status quo. The difference is slight at best; Trump supporters want to stop the status quo from ceasing to be the status quo while Sanders supporters think the status quo can’t change fast enough. In the meantime, both groups of supporters (read: fanatics) are being forced to live in a world that is utterly horrible, one that doesn’t kowtow to their respective beliefs. This is, however, merely indicative of a larger problem insofar as it has become every American’s prerogative to perceive any transgression – no matter how slight – into being victimized. Politically, both sets of supporters want to sell everyone on the idea that their candidate is for freedom when in fact both candidates are diametrically opposed to freedom – one is out to curtail freedoms for certain people while the other is out to curtail the freedom of certain ideas. The U.S.’s currently culture of victimization is born directly out of having too much freedom: The fact is that in almost no other country do the citizens have so much freedom to protest that their freedoms are under attack. Keep in mind that this is despite the media in the U.S. almost entirely being under the control of a mere five corporations.

Moderate independent, liberal and conservative voters alike have long mocked the ‘special snowflake’ narrative of left-of-left liberals and Millennials when it appears all groups suffer from this delusion that they are special and deserve special or preferential treatment. Chances are, unless you’re an overweight, militant, gay Native African-American who wears glasses, you haven’t been victimized by anything other than your own ego. While both Trump and Sanders supporters would like to get rid of a culture that is a meritocracy (in theory, anyway) it is perhaps best if we actually employed a culture of meritocracy. Special or preferential treatment should be earned regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation or nepotism. I say this because employing a true meritocracy is the best way to ensure everyone is treated fairly and no one can be victimized except by themselves.

Trump and Sanders supporters will never admit they have anything in common which only further demonstrates their inability to recognize their own humanness and the flaws that accompany it. Both groups think their candidate can fix what ails the country, but it is highly unlikely that more poison is the cure. Common ground is the cure, not a sharp divide.

When Abuse is Not Abuse

More often than not, I find myself on the wrong side of a debate. That is to say “the wrong side” meaning the more logical and rational side of the debate, the side that includes ugly truths that those with opposing viewpoints don’t want to hear because changing their beliefs would be too difficult.

The 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and its associated movie is the most recent case in point. What with the film’s release a week ago, feminists are up in arms once again to remind us that the story is about an abusive relationship that, gosh darn it, is bad. (Well, at least when the one being abused is female; more on that in a bit.) My point in commenting on certain feminist articles, the salient point that rational feminists (ha ha, get it?) keep ignoring at their convenience is that in the trilogy – after one puts aside the juvenile penmanship, the unrelatable much less believable characters, the misrepresentation of BDSM, etc. – when the protagonist Anastasia (Ana) consents to the particulars of her relationship with Christian, it is not abusive. The overall implication then is that when anyone willingly enters into a relationship, particularly knowing full well what they’re getting into, that person can no longer cry foul when abusive behavior takes place. That is, when one consents to being abused, ‘abuse’ is no longer the operative word for what transpires between people.

This is not to say that abuse cannot take place. In 50 Shades of Grey, Ana signs a legal document that agrees to being Christian’s sexual slave as well as giving Christian control over several aspects of her life, such as her diet and exercise routine. So, when her binds, spank, whips her or tells her what to eat and when to exercise; this is not abuse. Certainly, Christian does abuse Ana when her rapes her in her apartment, buys out the company she works for and sells her car without permission, yet she continues her relationship with her abuser. Although she can opt-out of the relationship – Christian’s threating her not to do that being idle as she has a number of options to help deal with her situation – Ana does not. She continues the relationship with her ‘abuser.’ Feminists claim Ana is still being abused, only they must mean that it Ana who is abusing herself, because that’s the only viewpoint left now. In this way, Ana bears the brunt for what anyone else may call a toxic relationship. So while feminists claim the Western patriarchal society has been running roughshod over women for centuries, the kicker is that women bear at least some of the blame. Women have been letting men control them.

Women say they have long had no recourse of action as historically the Western patriarchal societies have made it difficult for them to leave whatever domineering situation they may have been in. To a certain extent, possibly even a large extent, I agree with this analysis. Problem is, this really isn’t true of the current age, not in Western societies. Women (or anyone for that matter), when felling abused in a relationship, can leave the offending party. Now, if it is the case that leaving is not an easily viable option such as when the offending party threatens violence or control’s the victim’s finances, etc. there are still options the victim of abuse can pursue in order to leave a relationship. So while a victim in such a situation may be being abused, the point is not to continue an abusive relationship beyond the time one has to. To do otherwise is consenting to abuse. Furthermore, if one refuses to see that they are being abused (from the perspective of an outsider) for whatever reason – “I love him or her / You don’t know them like I do / They have a lot of money” – they are not being abused; they’re not even a victim. For any of us to argue otherwise is to become another person trying to control the ‘victim’ in question. Last time I checked, two wrongs still didn’t make a right.

I can easily argue from experience. More than once I’ve dated women who would withhold sex or promise an intimate relationship if only I would adhere to certain rules and/or jump through hoops. Although in these relationships I was manipulated to the point of great psychological stress – such are the perils of love/lust – I would never go so far as to say I was abused by these women. After all, I consented to every action I thought was necessary to win their affections. Moreover, I spent more than enough time with these women that I should have realized sooner rather than later that the writing was on the wall. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.) If I could at all said to be victimized or abused by these women I dated, it is my own fault. If any of us have a responsibility to anyone, it is ourselves. Thus, I have to take responsibility for my situations. But we often do not see people take this attitude, much less in the feminist narrative.

What we do also see lately in relation to ‘abuse’ is lots of people deciding they are victims after the fact in order to excuse their own shortcomings and feel better about themselves by shifting blame, or, in order to make themselves feel special or part of a group. One young lady I recently came across said the reason why she has so many health issues is due to the psychic scarring she received from across time when matriarchal religions were wiped out in Europe in favor of Christianity. While this is an extreme case of fulfilling the victimhood narrative for oneself, it highlights the fact that people make excuses and shift blame in order to, say, not eat healthy or exercise or do anything that would actually be beneficial to one’s health, as I discovered in this case. When one says they were abused long after a relationship’s demise, not having recognized they were abused when the abuse was going on, was not abuse. In every instance one determines they were abused after the fact, the victim in question had to come by the knowledge of what constitutes abuse without realizing it is someone else who is doing the defining of ‘abuse.’ One woman I courted decided that she was raped long after the alleged rape happened, deciding that merely not wanting to have sex in a certain instance but having sex anyway to appease her boyfriend at the time made the ex-boyfriend abusive. Sorry, but appeasing someone despite your true desires does not make the one being appeased a victimizer. If there’s any victimization going on in such instances, it’s self-victimization. Yet this self-portrayal of herself as a victim found solace when surrounded by others who truly were victimized by someone else. This is a mentality I cannot abide by, not then, not now.

[*And, needless to say, the potential relationship went nowhere fast.]

While there is some abusive elements to the 50 Shades of Grey story for Ana, what is never mentioned is the abusive manner in which Ana treats Christian. What I mean is that Ana doesn’t accept Christian for who he is and from the perspective of a male reader, consciously sets out to change him. If one of the talking points of the current liberal narrative is anything, it’s that everyone should accept everyone else for who they are (though of course in reality that means accepting everyone for who they are so long as they qualify as liberals). So what if Christian is into BDSM? Ana doesn’t have to become his sub but she does so because she’s curious and because Christian is a handsome billionaire. Ana figures at some point she can get Christian to dispense with the kinky sex and have the rest of her cake and eat it, too. So, it’s not exactly as though Christian does the only manipulating in the story. In fact, if manipulation is a part of abuse, Ana certainly does abuse Christian. Naturally, feminists will completely ignore this analysis because, hey, I am a male after all and only women can make relevant points.

Just because someone makes a claim of abuse doesn’t mean abuse is actually taking place. Of course, change the definition of a word enough or broad enough and suddenly everything qualifies. Eventually history will get to be written by the losers.

For someone who is often called a sophist, I am in dubious company.