As we are beset by wrongdoers who implausibly insist they are the true victims, we must ask, who established this system of cultural incentives?
Maureen Dowd almost gets it. In Sunday’s column, Dowd picked up on a pattern in recent news events:
- Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, a now-defunct health technology company, is now on trial for nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She intends to play the victim and say she was driven to commit fraud on a massive scale because of “a decade-long campaign of psychological abuse” perpetuated by her former boyfriend and business partner.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to criticism of her wearing a designer dress while freely attending a $30,000-per-head opulent gala that is a tax shelter, by declaring, “Honestly our culture is deeply disdainful and unsupportive of women, especially women of color and working class women (And LGBTQ/immigrant/etc)… The more intersections one has, the deeper the disdain. I am so used to doing the same exact thing that men do — including popular male progressive elected officials — and getting a completely different response.”
- Another member of “The Squad,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, reportedly describes herself as a defender of the working class and treats her own Congressional staff like dirt. Her current chief of staff, Lilah Pomerance, deflected: “Women of color are often unjustly targeted, regularly held to higher standards than their male colleagues, and always put under a sexist microscope.”
Dowd writes, sensibly, “we shouldn’t reorient our society so that people can simply wrap themselves in an identity cloak when identity is not the issue. Virtue should not be defined by who you are, putting you beyond reproach and preventing judgments about what you did. That would leave whole sectors of society exempt from moral evaluation.”
But there’s one more piece of the puzzle that Dowd glides over. Where did this sense come from that your status as a victim, or membership in a particular group, can be invoked as a defense for bad behavior? It certainly didn’t come from Americans who believe everyone should be seen and judged as an individual.
No, it has been the cultural, political, academic, business and media elites – who almost entirely identify themselves with somewhere on the left side of the political spectrum – who created the sense that being a victim of some sort of past injustice functions as a get-out-of-consequences-free-now card. And a lot of people, once they’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, go straight to that familiar narrative and recast themselves as victims. The risks of falsely portraying oneself as a victim are small, the public relations benefits are high, and it’s an easy move for the shameless. And if a figure doesn’t easily fit into the status of victim, then they metaphorically flash their “Ally of Progressivism” membership card.
Back when Harvey Weinstein’s decades of monstrous abuse caught up with him, Weinstein first tried to escape the consequences by reminding everyone he was a Democrat who supported gun control and who hated Donald Trump: “I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt and I plan to do right by all of them. I am going to need a place to channel that anger so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party.”
Thankfully, by 2017, Democrats were less enthusiastic about the Bill Clinton-era, “he’s a Democrat, so any sexual behavior is okay” reflex – at least in the case of Weinstein. Andrew Cuomo was able to enjoy the fruits of that attitude for a long, long time.
The tastemakers of our culture are addicted to simple narratives, where the villain encompasses familiar traits: white, male, straight, wealthy or middle-class, old or middle-aged. The victim or victims also preferably encompass familiar traits of racial minorities, women, LGBTQ and whatever else, poor, and young. Thus it fits into that reassuring, dudgeon-triggering pattern, one of the bad people has done something to harm one of the good people.
You could see it in the reactions on social media to the story of the New York City waitress who was allegedly attacked by three patrons from Texas after she asked to see their proof of vaccination. People glommed on to that story, as a vivid illustration of sensible urbanites and unhinged, violent, anti-vaccination Texans. The New York Daily News quoted a patron of the restaurant, “They’re tourists, from Texas. I’m not surprised. Coming to our city and attacking someone for doing their job. I think people have anger management issues, so don’t take it out on our city.”
Except… there’s more to the story, and additional details that suggest this may not be a simple tale of bad Texans attacking a good New Yorker for doing her job:
…on Saturday, lawyers for both Carmine’s and the women said that the three women had, in fact, provided documentation of Covid vaccinations. The altercation began after two men who joined their party several minutes later were unable to provide proof, the lawyers for both sides said.
Security camera footage reviewed by The New York Times shows three women, who were with several other people, being ushered into the restaurant after showing documentation near the entrance. Several minutes later, three men arrive to join the group, but only one of the three shows a vaccination card, lawyers for both sides said. A short time later, after the three women, who are Black, have joined the men outside, the fight breaks out.
Justin Moore, a lawyer who represents one of the women, Kaeita Nkeenge Rankin, said that the hostess used a racial slur and spoke condescendingly to the patrons, suggesting that their vaccination cards were fake. He also said the Texas women claim that the hostess assaulted them.
Why do Holmes, and Ocasio-Cortez, and Jayapal and so many others offer some version of “this criticism of me is entirely sexism”? Because it works, at least on some segment of other progressives. Some voices on the left are so terrified of even a BS accusation of sexism that they’ll choose to avert their eyes.