I’ve had it with whiney white people. Totally had it. Yes, I’m a white person myself, although perhaps not the whitest. Ancestry.com informed me that I’m eight percent indigenous. Maybe it’s that one-twelfth of me that’s pissed off.
Many of us with a world view that extends beyond arms’ length have long been annoyed by whiney white people. They constitute the most pampered, privileged class in history – especially white American males – but posture as victims. They’ve been fairly easy to ignore until recently. It was able to dismiss whiney white guys as the dude at the end of the bar who winds up talking to himself after several drinks, or the cranky uncle you need to unfriend. Whiney white people were considered idiosyncratic, a legless animal that presented no threat. Not anymore.
Now they are a potent political force. The Republican Party, which at one time had an ethos, has degenerated into a gaggle of self-indulgent geese. They sing in harmony from the self-pity hymnal. Self-pity is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a self-indulgent dwelling on one’s own sorrows or misfortunes.” That’s too generous. The GOP has been taken over by people who dwell on perceived sorrows or misfortunes. Most Republican voters believe white people face more bias and discrimination than black people. Let that sink in: a pampered population who owes its wealth to three centuries of stolen labor believe they are more victimized than the people whose labor they stole.
David Corn, writing in Mother Jones, cited a recent Pew Center study that illustrates this phenomenon. “About 83 percent of Republicans are white (with 3 percent or so Black), and one out of four Republicans believe that white people have to contend with powerful forces of discrimination,” wrote Corn on March 24th. “This is 50 percent more than the number of GOPers who recognize that Black people encounter substantial discrimination.” “Many of these people, to put it kindly, are living within a world of paranoid psychosis” he adds. “And the GOP has become a vehicle to exploit and fuel their irrational resentment.”
That observation isn’t confined to his side of the aisle. Michael Gerson, who served as the chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, made a similar observation on March 1st in the Washington Post, writing this about the current Republican Party: “The party has been swiftly repositioned as an instrument of white grievance. It refuses to condemn racists within its congressional ranks. Its main national legislative agenda seems to be the suppression of minority voting. Trumpism is defined by the belief that real Americans are beset by internal threats from migrants, Muslims, multiculturalists, Black Lives Matter activists, antifa militants and various thugs, gangbangers and whiners.” It’s a paranoid ship on a sea of fear.
The ship was launched and steered by Donald Trump, but wannabe Captains are queueing up at the till. I’m not talking about Ted “Cancun” Cruz or Tom Cotton, whose claim to fame is that he can nail a fly in mid-air with his tongue. Both of them are sleazy and creepy, but not crazy enough for the self-pitiers who dominate the party’s base voters.
Which brings us to the Lucy and Ricky of lunacy, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. Greene won a seat in Congress with the help of an opponent who literally fled the state before the 2020 general election. Greene is best known for her belief in the QAnon conspiracy and penchant for stalking and berating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and David Hogg. But her super power is her over-the-top victimhood. Greene despises COVID-19 mask mandates. She disregards the obvious benefits of protecting herself and others from a dangerous, highly contagious virus because she feels that it’s inconvenient. And when I say she feels the inconvenience, I mean she REALLY feels it.
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” she told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” Yes, in Green’s self-pitying, self-centered universe, a health requirement is exactly the same thing as a forced march to the gas chamber.
Matt Gaetz is also a master of victimhood. Gaetz is currently under investigation for allegedly paying women for sex and sex-trafficking a minor but casts himself as the victim. “I may be a canceled man in some corners,” he tweeted on April 9th. “I may even be a wanted man by the Deep State. But I hear the millions of Americans who feel forgotten, canceled, ignored, marginalized and targeted.” That’s the formula for those who aspire to be the drum major of the pity parade. I’m a victim, just like you are.
Roger Stone, one of the convicted felons pardoned by Trump, sees a leader in Gaetz. “The ‘leaked’ smear on Congressman Matt Gaetz is an extortion play and an effort to destroy the up and coming conservative leader who has the balls to call the left out,” Stone wrote on Parler, reported the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Stone, who helped Donald Trump cheat his way into the presidency and sports a tattoo of Richard Nixon, sees another winner. If anybody knows about electing evil men to high office, it’s Roger Stone.
The mere thought is enough to make you pour a glass of whine.
© 2021 by Mike Tully
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