all of it is good, but an excerpt I thought was most relevant here:
It is also a movement of aspirational humiliators—young men, for instance, who feel (and have been indoctrinated to feel) that being cruel to women, putting them 'in their place' is their birthright. It is not that they have lost anything, rather that women have gained something. Groups 'below' you in the hierarchy having more power makes them less susceptible to humiliation (the forced recognition of dominating power). This, to many, is unacceptable. Women pushing back against harassment or abuse, social norms against open racism, and service workers earning more, all limit the ability to humiliate. MAGA is a movement of parasites seeking hosts.
This non-economic, non-instrumentally-rational side to the Trump movement is often swept awkwardly under the label 'populism.' It is imagined that it comes from similar discontents as left populism. That there is an 'anti-establishment' vibe out there that is channelled in different directions, that Bernie and Trump are drawing water from the same well. Using humiliation as a political concept however, we can see that the emotional base of the movements are not only different, but opposite—directly opposed to each other. Right populism is driven by the desire to humiliate, left populism by not wanting to be humiliated. The anger that fuels protest movements often comes from experiences of humiliation.
I was active during the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd's killing. My impression was that, for many people there, this wasn't just about that murder—horrific as it was. They were angry. Angry perhaps at their own unpleasant encounters with law enforcement. Angry at various smaller instances of disrespect in their lives. Moments where they were made to feel powerless. Police killings were the spark that activated that anger. It's worth noting that the most high-profile of such incidents, the ones that generated the most outrage, often involved elements of humiliation. Derek Chauvin, knee in Floyd's back as he begged for his life, was—in addition to murdering him—humiliating him. He was impressing on him, violently, his own powerlessness.
While the socialist left is more economic in focus, I think a lot of the energy it draws on also comes from anger at being humiliated. My friend Matt McMannus, a member of this political group, recounted a formative experience for him the last time he was on my podcast:
I've worked a lot of different jobs . . . one of the most important for me was when I was working at McDonalds . . . I'll never forget when my boss used to tell me to go into the dumpster to cut into all the trash because people had thrown stuff away that they weren't supposed to. And it wasn't just me; all the people there had to do this. And he treated us like shit. He was just like 'go do this, and I don't care that you think that's dirty or disgusting, and that it's 50 degrees out' . . . and it's this lack of respect and feeling like you're under someone's thumb that really grated me in that situation . . . it's exposure to things like this that lead a lot of people to become socialist.
As an aside, I think this explains a lot of left anger at liberals. When they say 'middle-class liberal' they're imagining someone who has not had experiences like this and does not understand—indeed, arrogantly dismisses—the perspective of those who have. It isn't a fair characterization of all, or even most, liberals (loads of us have also had shit jobs), but it is of some affluent libs, and it does make them incredibly frustrating to talk to. While there will always be people who will try and stereotype liberals, we could do a better job at avoiding this image, at not letting people like this be the face of the movement.
(it's a bit too "confirms my priors" for my comfort – it's probably true that MAGA justifies its performative humiliation of others because of a victim narrative in their heads, confirmed by a whole ecosystem of propaganda, where they are the ones being humiliated. But I think this is an interesting piece that I'll keep chewing on)
Posted by bobidou23