Pap Attack: Republican Fear Leads to Victim-Blaming

Run time: 03:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZFC9WkPXzQ   Posted on YouTube: September 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 16, 2009 By DU Member: GoLeft TV Views on DU: 941

 
The GOP has always had a funny way of trying to rationalize the world around them. One of the most prevalent tactics is the use of victim blame, which is a defense mechanism whereby they justify an unjust world by saying that the victim did something to deserve their troubles. This goes for rape victims, the homeless, and the people who've been foreclosed on. Mike Papantonio takes a look at the psychology of the GOP in this week's Pap Attack.

.. but many Reeps and extreme rightwingers function
effectively as bullies; but when challenged or
debunked, they go victim and pretend that they
are being unjustly or unfairly attacked .. say, for
example, by someone playing the "race card."

Folks.. there is no such thing as a "race card."
Racism exists in the GOP and extremist rightwingers,
bigtime. It's as though the dark id of the
GOP and rightwing has a kind of uninhibited expression
now; and since they have their hatemedia mongers and
allies to incite, buttress, and back them up with
lies, hate, and misinformation, they feel as though
they can first bully and then play their own, heh heh,
victim card and milk it for all its worth.

Palin more or less developed it into an art, as I recall.

They've got a black man as their party leader! :sarcasm:

When I tell my story about my ten year fight with my Insurance Company and how they contributed to my son's disabilities. It's always a republican that blames me instead. With words like ..If it were my child he would have gotten treated, I would have taken another job to pay for it(I was already working a forty hour work week, spending my nights at the hospital with my child and dealing with the massive amount of paperwork from my Insurance Co.) . Or you must be lying cause you didn't sue them. they know so little about Insurance Law and what you can actually sue for. The best one was from my fundie step-son who said God was punishing my child for my sin of divorce.

Another great example we've just seen - Wilson was "provoked" and is "under attack" by Obama.

I remember a girl at work telling me that if you raise your children as Christians, they won't get into trouble. So if your children get into trouble, it's because you didn't raise them Christian or at least not good enough Christians.

In their minds, since hard work always = success, then failure must be a result of laziness.

Since health and cleanliness are virtues, then someone who is ill is that way because of their lifestyle. Seriously. I've heard this one a lot lately, that old saw, "why should I pay to take care of that cancer patient who smoked?" or some similar argument. I always come back with, "what about my good friend who got cancer when he was a baby? Or the millions of people with diseases which they inherited from their parents, or for which the cause is not known?"

They just don't get it, and I partially blame the fact that they've been told so much that they are responsible for their own success (the bootstrap bullshit myth), and that they didn't need anyone else's help (which is not true), and that good people are always rewarded and evil people are always punished.

Virtue = Happiness versus uh, that's not really how the world works.

I've thought a lot about this lately. Conservatives can't stand to live in our relatively random universe. Their minds can't handle accepting that some good people get screwed, while evil people flourish.