Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Victims Forever

There are a lot of reports of Clinton supporters pledging to support John McCain this fall. This is ironic for a few reasons.

First, they know that McCain would almost certainly appoint a pro life justice to the Supreme Court in the next four years, likely overturning Roe v. Wade, something that's supposedly dear to Clinton and certainly most feminists.

Second, Obama's policies are almost identical to Clinton's substantively, and McCain's are virtually opposite. This shows that the decision to abandon Obama is largely emotional - and is most likely driven by a feeling that somehow Hillary was wronged, or cheated out of the election. This idea of Hillary's victimhood first at the hands of an unfaithful husband and then by a right-wing attack machine and finally a sexist press and an unfair primary process, the latter ideas stoked by Clinton herself, has driven some supporters to reject Obama - even though he hasn't done anything sexist and certainly won fair and square despite long odds.

But the final and most striking irony is that because of this, some Clinton supporters are pledging to vote for McCain who abandoned his first wife (who had been disfigured in a car accident) for a younger, healthier woman! I mean of all the people to support - these lost Clinton supporters are choosing someone who actually ditched and cheated on his wife to punish Obama, who is by all accounts faithful to his!

Think about that for a moment - all those people who identify with Hillary as a victim are voting for a victimizer to spite a man whose campaign for the most part took the high road. It's almost as if they resent Obama's lack of identification with black victimhood more than McCain's willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade and his abandoning his wife because she was no longer attractive.

But I suppose that's what the mentality of victimhood is - not merely someone who's been wronged, but one who ensures that the wrong repeats itself and perpetuates one's identity as a victim. And come to think of it, Obama's more of a threat to their identity than McCain is. Obama is a counterexample to them - he shows there's another way to proceed. McCain is the other side of the same coin - he commits the outrages that they feed on. So if McCain gets elected, they can continue to whine and complain. If Obama gets elected, and asks blacks to rise above victimhood, those women are going to have to go along, too - or look feeble and pathetic by contrast. What a nightmare - to have to take responsibility for your own lives!

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