PRIVILEGED OPPRESSION

#psychology #socialism #americaninequality #americanpolitics

The ceiling tiles were nicotine-stained mosaics, each square a different shade of beige despair. As a clock hangs lopsided on the wall, ticking, but the minute never ends, seconds appear instead to stack, like an alcoholic saying “just one more”. Fairy lights strung along the counter still flickered, though half were dead, leaving the survivors with nothing but the status of ‘not dead yet’. The whole room felt tired, like it had given up pretending to be a café and had settled instead for being a waiting room, but without a goal for what it was waiting for. But still, people waited, looking absolutely miserable. You could almost see the internal argument inside them unfold, as they forever insist that everything is great.

“I don’t like mirrors” she said.

“They’re honest” he said.

“They’re repetitive” she said.

Like a carrot cake, America has always had a talent for disguising its hatreds in something more palatable. Today, when a crowd roars “socialism,” what they often mean is: how dare the people I consider beneath me, stand shoulder to shoulder with me. Economics is a secondary concern, the primary outrage is equality itself, – which, to them, is like being asked to share a bath with the dog.

This charade, this performance of virtuous outrage, is not new. It predates the very flag they now drape over their pitchforks. In 1855, the Richmond Enquirer shrieked that abolitionists were “socialists, infidels and agrarians, and openly propose to abolish any time-honoured and respectable institution in society.” – not only were they threatening the plantation ledger books, but also daring to suggest women and the wrong sort of Christians might have voices too.

A century later the placards at civil rights marches declared “Race Mixing is Communism.” No one in Alabama was really worried that interracial couples were plotting a five-year plan to collectivise the cotton gins. What they feared was the collapse of the pecking order. To the hierarchy-minded, equality looks like theft, someone undeserving is climbing onto the furniture, and they haven’t even removed their shoes.

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

It’s the psychology of loss where there is no loss. A man who has dined at the head table all his life sees the rest of the hall offered chairs, and suddenly his chair feels shorter, the wine tastes watered, the bread seems stale, the roast beef looks suspiciously democratic. He is convinced something sacred has been stolen. Call it status anxiety if you like, though it’s less a clinical diagnosis than a tantrum dressed up in academic robes.

Modern politics feeds on it like a parasite. Donald Trump, a man whose entire persona could be described as a toupee balanced on top of grievance, thrives by promising to return “the right people” to their rightful perch. His rallies hum with the same spirit as the Richmond editorial, – the terror that those below might no longer stay there. He is, essentially, flogging nostalgia for an unfair system, and doing it with all the subtlety of syphilis in a monastery. And fear votes, I mean, really votes, I’ve seen other votes, but these are the best votes you’ve ever seen. No one else in the world votes like these votes. People say to me “Mr President, how did your votes get so big?”

And so the word “socialism” is spat not as a critique of economic policy but as an incantation against equality. Healthcare? Socialism. Education? Socialism. The vote? At one point, that too was branded socialism. What it really means is, they are getting what should be ours.

The tragedy is that the country was built on that reflex. From Puritan pulpits to cable news studios, every generation has found a way to howl that fairness is tyranny. Equality is forever portrayed as a guillotine waiting to lop off the heads of the “deserving,” when in truth it is merely setting down another chair at the table.

But to the man who has been alone on his throne too long, that chair looks like a usurper. He snarls, he hisses, he calls it socialism.

The routine is ancient: convince the public that equality is the enemy, and they’ll beg you to protect them from it. And so history lurches on, endlessly replaying the same joke, privilege mistakes balance for robbery, fairness looks like oppression, until a nation, that prides itself on freedom, trembles at the thought of sharing it.

Equality is not oppression, but privilege will never forgive it for feeling that way.

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