Victims, Martyrs, and Saints: The Discursive Politics of White Rage

• In Event: The Politics of Belonging: How Identity Informs Inclusion and Exclusion

Abstract

The paper is rooted in the narrative forms that shape contemporary white nationalism. At the most familiar level, far right theorists dip from the narrative world of conservatism to depict the present as a time of cultural malaise. What distinguishes the activist core of the far right, however, is not merely a sense that culture is in a state of decline – instead, it is the insistence that the “proper” core of the nation is under attack. To this end, the paper argues that the heart of the far right’s narrative politics (i.e., its “metapolitics”) is the framework of victimhood. One core assertion anchors the media ecology of the far right: it is not only that traditional roles and hierarchies are undergoing change; more fundamentally, the changes unfolding in the nation come at the cost of those to whom the nation “properly” belongs. This claim is perhaps most evident in the narrative of so-called ethnic “replacement.” Repeatedly, ethnonationalist figures return to one point: “we [whites] are the true heirs to the nation, but it is being snatched from our hands and given to others. We are the victims of sprawling global forces. They despise us and take what is rightfully ours.”

In pursuing this diagnosis, the paper engages with a wide literature on narrative, trauma, victimhood, and brings them to bear on far right movement literature. The paper does not, however, limit itself to identifying the core trope of white nationalist movement literature. More significantly, it diagnoses the distinct politics that this narrative framework enables. On the one hand, this narrative of victimhood inverts/masks standing structures of power. Groups that have been historically advantaged by hierarchies of power are instead presented as victims of shadowy forces – and, conversely, movements for equality are figured as unjust aggressors against the truly deserving. In a more clearly practical sense, the framework of persecution also shapes the motivational economy of far right movements. In a situation of existential threat and aggression, even extreme acts and words are justified to combat the perceived severity of the threat. In a word, the position of victimhood allows white extremists to claim the classic appeal of extremist organizations: righteous rage.

Accordingly, the essay argues that the violence of white nationalism is not accidental, but is built into its grounding discursive commitments. And it argues the need for alternative vocabularies to blunt these malignant narratives of white nationalist rage.

Author

• Michael Feola, Lafayette College