When the Villain Becomes a Victim
At the DCCC luncheon last April 20th women candidates from across the country , among them: Lauren Baer (FL-18), Gretchen Driskell (MI-07), Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23), Susie Lee (NV-03), Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL- 13), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL-26), Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), Xochitl Torres Small (NM-02), and Lauren Underwood (IL-14) gave approximately fifteen minute presentations describing the policies they are advocating and their means for achieving these goals.
These candidates represent women from all walks of life yet each of them was as thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, well-informed and diplomatic as you could possibly hope for as they were a testimony to our democracy. They were so appealing that I believe almost anyone would entrust the presidency to them, much less the office they were running for, in an instant. Their presentations made me hopeful for the third time since the whole debacle of the 2016 election began. (The first was when McCain did his thumbs down on the healthcare vote, the second was the young generation at “March for Our Lives” last March.) The reason these women (and John McCain and the high school students) made me hopeful is because they stuck to issues and the way to make these issues a part of sound policy. These candidates did not mention Trump once. (The difference between them and HRC is they do not have her baggage).
My website http://www.conflictuncomplicated.com describes how criticizing Trump the man, no matter how depraved his behavior, has the effect of victimizing him and giving him, in the eyes of many, the moral high ground.
“It is said that James Cagney played the bad guy so well because he understood that bad guys don’t see themselves as bad guys, they see themselves as misunderstood good guys.”
– found in the archives of Turner Classic Movies
Politicians and their operatives that understand this and that understand that criticizing bad guys often makes them sympathetic figures with whom some people identify are generally very successful. Think of the CJ in “West Wing” – episode four of the third series, after the President has lied for four years to the American people and yet she manipulates the GOP congress to go after The President in such a way that the GOP looks vindictive while President Bartlett wins in a landslide.
Sheldon Solomon, PhD one of the authors of “The Worm at the Core” said recently (and I paraphrase)
“Human beings have a great track record of getting themselves out of desperate situations – e.g. think of the Bubonic Plague when they finally figured out that it was the rats, not the evil spirits that were spreading the disease – because humans do learn and they get to the bottom of things.”
Various explanations for “the villain becoming a victim” include “identifying with the aggressor” and The Milgram Effect in which it was shown experimentally that some individuals enable and carry out the work of the aggressor, due in part to the defensive mechanisms of projection and projective identification. Other explanations that encompass cultural effects need to be integrated into these psychological phenomenon. Rest assured, if Democratic candidates are to be elected and Democratic policies are to be enacted this phenomenon has got to be appreciated. It is my responsibility as a social scientist to, along with my colleagues, help explain and disseminate this phenomenon to the American people.
– Taking Dr. Solomon’s wise words to heart – I implore you to understand the importance of understanding this phenomenon of turning the villain into a victim – and how powerful and destructive it is and furthermore how fundamental it is to malignant narcissism. We must understand that we are all actors on this stage and Trump will only be successful if we let him.
