History is replete with examples of horrible human beings leading tribes, nation-states and other communities. The reasons are clear however one of the most effective techniques to mass “buy in” is really very simple. The “ideologue” simply creates a common enemy. Nazi Germany provides an excellent example however there are many. “How did Hitler, whose National Socialist Party never gained the votes of much more than a third of the German electorate in a free election, manage to win the support of the overwhelming majority of the German people? To what extent did they share his goals of the mass murder of the Jews and the establishment of a German Empire based on the conquest of the Soviet Union, the murder of the original inhabitants or their reduction to rightless slaves of the Third Reich?” (BBC, 1989) Aside from Hitler’s talent for oratory, he was effectively able to create an “enemy” and ascribe Germany’s economic and social ills to that enemy. So effective he was that the majority of Germanys’ population became accomplices to the murder of over eight million jews.
Author Jordan Peterson describes the pathology well, identifying the despot’s technique as that of Ressentiment. A central aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, “ressentiment occurs when individual failure or insufficient status is blamed both on the SYSTEM within which the failure or lowly status occurs and then, most particularly, on the people who have achieved success and high status within that system. The form, the system, is deemed by fiat to be unjust. The successful are deemed exploitative and corrupt, as that can be logically read as undeserving beneficiaries, . . .” (Peterson, “Beyond Order”, 2021) Can you think of a current, very public example of a political leader that blames the “deep state” (the ‘system’) and the people of rank and position in that system? Certainly one in particular stands out among his copy-cat peers. The problem is that in the contemporary example, the SYSTEM is the liberal democratic order that has made the United States them mos economically successful, socially stable and just society in world history. That very system was also largely responsible for post-WWII peace that has lasted nearly one hundred years.
Peterson writes, “There is another typical feature of [this figure]; the victims supported by ideologues are always innocent, . . . and the perpetrators always evil. But the fact that there exist genuine victims and perpetrators provides no excuse to make low-resolution, blanket statements about the global locale of blameless victimization and evil perpetration, . . . No group guilt should be asssumed, and certainly of the multi-generational kind. It is a certain sign of the accuser’s evil intent, and a harbinger of social catastrophe. The advantage is that ideologue, at little practical cost, can construe him or herself both as nemesis of the oppressor and defender of the oppressed.” (Peterson, “Beyond Order”, 2021) Again, does a contemporary figure come to mind? Allow me the opportunity to illustrate.
“Only I can fix it.”
“I’ll drain the swamp.”
“It’s the oppressive left driven by hate that seeks to censor and silence you.”
“The radical left, they hate our history, they hate our values, and they hate everything we prize as Americans,”
“In Joe Biden’s America, rioters, looters and criminal aliens have more rights than law-abiding citizens,”
Do these statements sound familiar? They are precisely the peril to which Peterson refers. As Jennifer Mercieca observes, the contemporary example presents himself as the, “heroic figure who can make America great again by defeating corruption and conspiracy. [He] claimed that he was uniquely qualified to “drain the swamp” of corruption. His campaign presented a hero narrative of sacrifice and struggle. He had been “the ultimate insider,” he claimed, but once he decided to run for president and make America great again, he had been purified. As “the ultimate outsider” he would “drain the swamp” and end corruption. He said that it would be easy for him to do.” (Mercieca, 2020) The tactics are clear, even if the delivery is imperfect. The protagonist is most measures, dumber than a sack of rocks however, the deployment of time-tested methods of recruiting followers doesn’t require a genius perpetrator. There are others to blame, mainly the media channels that are accomplices in the mass diffusion of resentment, hate, and ill-placed blame for society’s challenges, however the Goebbels-esque techniques of propaganda are content for an entirely different subject. What is certain, is that millions of Americans have been duped by a dangerous conman.