I used to have a lot of respect for American conservatism. There was a time, in my lifetime, when it seemed like the thing that most riled a conservative was victimhood. Conservatives couldn't stand the idea of someone taking a welfare check instead of getting a job, someone claiming exceptional treatment because of their race or ethnicity, or someone wanting clemency for crimes committed. You didn't have to agree with the conservative take on these issues--that welfare 'handouts' only breed idleness, racial or ethnic discrimination is a thing of the past, and justice should be swift and retributive--in order to respect the basic worldview that underlies these positions: we should all take personal responsibility for ourselves, our wellbeing, and our actions.
And before my lifetime, when notable conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly railed against the Equal Rights Amendment out of fear that such a law might preclude our ability to 'deny a homosexual the right to teach in the schools, or to adopt children,'you could kind of respect conservatives for standing tall on their worldviews, however repulsive they sometimes were. Schlafly fought against equal rights for women with a force and vitality that make Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann look like PBS telethon hosts on a slow night. You get the sense that if Facebook were around in ol' Phyllis' heyday, her wall wouldn't exactly be filled with passive-aggressive and sometimes weepy e-scrawlings amounting to 'why is errybody always pickin on me (and Bristol).'
The fact is, at some point, conservatives started conceiving of themselves as that which they've always loathed: victims.
It was most notable for me as an undergraduate. At the university, the caucasian majority, regardless of political orientation, was generally bright and openminded, and, even if at times lacking in understanding of particular histories that might make certain kinds of jokes or comments inappropriate or even racist, was not a racist bunch. Our generation came of age in a political and legal environment that had long since granted equal rights and equal treatment under law to all people (except homosexuals), regardless of race or creed. So, I gather, it was often difficult for bunches of smart, mostly well meaning white kids who harbored no conscious prejudice to square the fact that in the university environment, there were special offices, clubs, resources, scholarships, etc. for seemingly everyone but them. Such were the preconditions for the conservative fight against multiculturalism: white conservatives felt simultaneously neglected and deracinated, and minority conservatives were rightfully sick and tired of being placed in identity boxes, or looked at askance, as though they only managed success in the admissions tournament because they got some kind of preferential treatment or racial boost as an historical corrective. Both groups of conservatives had reasonable claims against the multiculturalist agenda: no one likes to be blanco anymore than s/he likes to be reduced to any color at all. So a generation of young conservatives, mostly white, mostly of educated and privileged classes, began thinking of themselves as victims.
On top of this notion of 'white victimhood' that arose in large part, as I see it, as a reaction to the rise of multiculturalism, conservatives came to understand, with some validity, that, at least in the academy, in Hollywood, and in the establishment media, their politics were also out of fashion (owning Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and most of the Supreme Court apparently wasn't enough). Left-leaning professors challenged the assumed supremacy of neocapitalism, the idea of American exceptionalism, the myth of the 'welfare queen,' and the profit motive in healthcare. Movies and sitcoms mocked Reaganites as stodgy, dorky, and sexually inept. And the major media outlets--network news and big urban papers like the New York Times--were crawling with skinny-tied sophisticates who thought and ridiculed liberally. So conservatives took a page out of the liberals' playbook, further playing up their marginalization, their victimhood.
Today, conservatives are perhaps our whiniest victims. Over at Brainstorm, Naomi Schaefer Riley succumbs to verbal hyperventilation over the fact that the liberal Rebecca Mead--for Riley, representing 'the attitude of the establishment' [!!!!!!!!]--had the nerve to write snidely about Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton for buying up a bunch of American art and displaying it in Arkansas. Riley's problem boils down to the fact that the patriotic Alice Walton, who has 'never...considered collecting anything but American art,' might vaguely stand in for conservatism, and the 'establishment' liberal Mead (nevermind Riley's Harvard education) has taken a mild shot at Walton and the company she represents. So what? Aside: between Rebecca Mead--whom you've probably never heard of--and Wal-Mart, who represents the establishment, again?
Meanwhile, as congressional conservatives fight to maintain a series of corporate tax loopholes, among them one that enables tax breaks for the corporate use of private jets, the apparent victimization of those who occupy the world of corporate private jetting has interrupted discussions about how the country might try to pull itself out from under its crushing debt.
And let's not forget about new author of Not Afraid of Life, Bristol Palin, who fell victim recently to a Bill Maher joke about her prudish explanation of how she 'accidentally' got black-out drunk on wine coolers (which she didn't know contained alcohol) and conceived a child with her boyfriend. Bristol, who is evidently mature enough to have a sexual relationship and a child and a memoir, is so much the victim that Fox News brought on a psychiatrist to remote-analyze Maher for mental illness.
Arguably, today's conservative worldview necessarily comes with an orientation toward victimhood, or the feeling of being constantly embattled. The Phyllis Schlaflys and Richard Nixons--the types that weren't too prudish to grab you by the balls and squeeze if it meant winning the issue--have been replaced by a bunch of big softies. It's as if they're compensating for something when they take photo ops with large rifles. It's as if the world is continually moving on, and the progress has got them down.
