The Victimization of America – In Society and Politics

Playing the victim is not new in society or politics.

In the Garden of Eden Adam blamed his wife, Eve claiming that it was  “not my fault, but she made me” to paraphrase his response to God. It seems there have always been two possible answers to one’s falling short of expectations: to own it or to play the victim and make excuses. Societies ebb and flow, some more than others regarding this problem. The closer a society is to God, the closer individuals are to God, the more likely it is they will accept responsibility for their actions. Accepting responsibility is not always negative, like accepting loss or punishment. When we are rewarded for our actions or behavior, are we not also accepting responsibility?

Communists, Socialists and Progressives use the idea of victims and fairness as one of the foundational planks of their platform. Karl Marx seems to have been one of the first to interject class warfare, or the idea that one class is the victim of another, or the “Haves vs the Have Nots.”  This was idea gained so much traction in Europe because they had distinct ruling classes into which regular workers had no hope of achieving success.

The blessing of America was the opportunity to have that barrier broken, so that every person had the opportunity to improve their condition based on their work ethic and ambition.  However, race-baiting individuals, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson need the strife and division to justify their positions, and we also see that progressives need the class and race warfare – victims – to justify theirs as well.

Wealth redistribution and control via regulation and taxes are the tools by which they make things “fair”.

After all, if things are not fair, then when bad things happen, it’s not your fault. My parents were children of the depression. They were poor, but in most cases, did not know they were poor.  Everyone they knew was just as poor.  They were not taught they were victims. They were taught that you work hard to survive, and work harder to get ahead. I had it much better than they, however, my parents were smart enough to not hand me things and make my life easy. My wife had a rough life as a child, as well. We both wanted to make sure our children knew how to work and achieve on their own. We wanted to raise self-reliant and personally responsible children.  My personal lesson to each of them was this: “Life’s tough, then you die. The sooner you accept that fact and move on with your life, the better off you’ll be.” Essentially, life is not fair, it never will be, get used to it.

I recall a very emotional story covered by a young reporter. There was a child in the community that had been born with no arms. The toddler had adapted well, primarily due to his mother, who demanded he do what he could for himself. The reporter had taken pictures, asked questions and taken notes while mother and son interacted and went through some of his daily routine. The boy had fed himself using his feet and was struggling to change a soiled shirt. He was having quite a bit of difficulty and the young reporter became a little miffed at the insensitive mother who was just watching. He asked, “Why don’t you help him?” The mother wiped a damp eye, looked at the reporter and replied, “I am.” This young man would not be a victim.

I recently covered the Utopian goal of equality, and it is good, so have a look at it.  I will not rehash that information here. It is a pillar of Progressivism to make a segment of society the victim. If there is a victim, then something must be unfair, and if something is unfair, then there must be a person, group or politician who can and will level the playing field. The self appointed job of the Progressive politician is to make things fair, and fair is equal outcome. If someone makes more money than you, has a nicer house or better car, then they should have to pay more for their success, that’s only fair, right?


In all the history of these United States, there has been no bigger victim than Barack Obama. After seven years as president,  he still blames his predecessor for many things. Interestingly enough, he has touted how the bank bailout and the bailout of GM helped bring the economy out of recession. Both of those occurred under George W. Bush and at best, he was one of one of 100 senators to vote on the legislation. However, most of the time, politicians are the ones who ride in on their white horse to save the oppressed. Politicians play the fairness card to gain support and votes with people who want to be victims.  Our political system is breaking down as we transition from Republic to Democracy.

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”― Benjamin Franklin.

No discussion of victimology would be complete without mentioning the Cloward and Piven Strategy. Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were sociologists who in 1966 who developed the plan to use social programs to overload the system, and collapse the economy under the burden of victims. The idea is that they could then change our system from capitalism to socialism as the economy was rebuilt. With $19 trillion of national debt, and $22 trillion spent on social programs since 1965, it would seem they might get their way.

Aside from the victims in society and the White House, another victim has reared his head. Donald Trump.  Mr. Trump’s Nationalist message and his following are also based on victimization. Not only do many of his supporters play the victim, he does as well. We’re victims of Mexico, China, Japan. Trump is a victim of the primary rules, and the other mean and nasty candidates. His answer to this victimization is to use government power to punish the offenders, just like progressives from the other side of the aisle.  He punishes his opponents by putting them down using epithets to degrade them, and he rarely calls them by name.


As I have watched Trump during this primary process, I wondered at times if he understood the difference between a democracy and a republic. It appeared he thought the primary system was about the popular vote when he cried about how unfair the system was when the delegate count did not go his way. If I were to say a piece of the system was unfair, it would be that Democrats could vote in many of the Republican primaries. Since he won those votes, I guess fairness depends on whether he wins or not.

Ironically, I ran across a number of Tweets sent out by Trump in 2012 during the primary. He tweeted that Rick Santorum was losing because he did not understand the primary rules and was losing delegates to those who were capitalizing on the system.  So, Donald knew the rules in 2012, but doesn’t in 2016?  One has to question if Trump really wants to win the nomination or not. Does he even want to be president? He talked of running for Governor of NY in 2014, but he was a victim of the state’s Republican Party.

It goes without saying that both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are from the party that promotes victim-hood as a normal part of their campaign, so I’ll leave them for now.

Victimization is killing our republic. Victimization and a republic are incompatible with the citizens. With illegal immigrants playing the victim and demanding tremendous expenditures of capital, and politicians who are more than happy to accommodate them in exchange for votes, there is little hope the debt will be doing anything but growing in the years ahead – until the Cloward and Piven Strategy brings it crashing down around our ears.

With three of the top four presidential candidates pandering to the victims and playing the roll of victim themselves, is there much hope for our republic? I personally believe whether it is Cloward and Piven or something else, there is no way that what we are doing is sustainable. Things will get very bad for a time, however, I also believe the constitution will win out in the end over the Marxists. We have our work cut out for us. Get ready.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo



Connecting to %s