Monday, July 25, 2016

A Collection of Victim Groups

Oren Cass writes at City Journal about the descent of the Democrats into victim group politics. Some key points:
In early June, Hillary Clinton’s campaign website featured about 30 issue-specific pages focused not on a nation with problems to be solved but on discrete victim groups with wounds to be salved.

Based on an examination of Clinton’s website, “racial justice” is her campaign’s organizing principle.

Wherever racial linkages weaken, gender stands ready to pick up the slack.

Framing issues as who instead of what leads to a governing model that would divide society by race, gender, sexuality, profession, and location, targeting policies to each defined demographic.

In a world of fixed resources, such a model inevitably undermines the idea of equal protection under the law, pits groups against one another, and leaves some explicitly favored by government as winners.
The alternative to viewing the Democrats as a criminal conspiracy masquerading as a political party is to view them as a collection of victim groups seeking redress, seeking special favors to help equalize their situations.

I am reminded of the Kurt Vonnegut dystopian short story Harrison Bergeron in which everyone without a handicap is required to wear shackles (or equivalent) to slow them down and hamper their actions.