White Male Victimization Anxiety
During the swearing-in of Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Monday, Donald Trump took it upon himself to apologize to Kavanaugh and his family “on behalf of our nation” for the “terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.”
He repeated the tired lines that he and Republicans hope will stick, and steer the comatose base to electoral fervor: That accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh were part of a “campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception” and that “what happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process.”
But to me, this was not just a president and party worried about an approaching “blue wave” and trying to take political advantage of a moment of victory. It was also an outright and increasing amplification of a reactionary white male victimization syndrome that has consumed modern American conservatism.
Vox has called it “
the unleashing of white male backlash.”
The women accusing the white man of assault weren’t the victims; instead, the white man was the victim. In some people’s eyes, he was the victim of political correctness, #MeToo’s overreach, a check-your-white-male-privilege culture drunk on its own self-righteousness.
During Kavanaugh’s hearings, Lindsey Graham had the temerity to say, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”
The evocation of his white maleness in his argument was an overt shot at the check-your-privilege crowd.
Kavanaugh’s belligerent defense and Trump’s dismissal of the accusers — he mocked one at a political rally and called the
accusations a hoax — represent for many men a back-against-the-wall, no-more-space-to-retreat moment of fighting back, of pushing back, of standing proud in their patriarchy and proclaiming that it will not bend.
They’re saying, “Enough.” They will cede no more ground, they will share no more power, they will accommodate no more ascendancy and validation of the oppressed. That is what they are telling us, and they are speaking through Trump.
As
MarketWatch pointed out in June:
“Men have a tendency to believe that decreasing bias against women is associated with increasing bias against men, said Clara Wilkins, a professor at Wesleyan University who studies the psychology behind reverse discrimination.”
The site went on:
“‘There’s this perception of a zero-sum relationship; men and women are in competition,’ she said. ‘So if things are better for women, things are worse than men.’ Other research indicates whites perceive a similar relationship to minority groups.”
And this victim sensibility that Trump is articulating is not generationally restricted. In January
a PRRI/MTV poll of 15- to 24-year-olds found that 43 percent of young white men say discrimination against whites is as serious a problem as discrimination against other groups (29 percent of young white women agreed with them), and nearly half (48 percent) believe efforts to increase diversity will harm white people.
Trump is the paragon, the epitome, of this white male victimization. Everything and everyone is being unfair to him, and by extension, to white men.
Opinion | White Male Victimization Anxiety