Being a victim used to be a bad thing — something we tried to avoid, and rarely wanted to admit. As a nation, we strove to rise above obstacles and adversity, not wallow in our own self-pity. Yet today the most powerful people in America are the ones who scream loudest about their own victimization.
The Daily Caller’s latest documentary, “Demand for Hate,” exposes how this happened — and how it gave the worst people in America the power to ruin the lives of innocent people. America has now become all too familiar with hate crime hoaxes as the desire to be victimized far exceeds the supply of hate and oppression.
“Demand for Hate” is available to stream exclusively for Patriots members.
Catch a first glimpse below.
“A hate crime hoax is essentially a situation where a very high profile hate incident turns out not to be real,” explains Wilfred Reilly, a political scientist who tracks these hoaxes. Reilly is just one of the many experts The Daily Caller’s investigative team sat down with to understand what drives a person to want to be a victim.
“Intersectionality,” explains marriage and family therapist Katrina Taylor, is the “idea that people are marginalized or held back, oppressed, along a number of categories.”
Intersectionality was first formulated as a legal theory in the 1980s, but has since become the driving force of our culture of victimhood. In theory, a person may be oppressed for being black; she may also be oppressed for being a woman. Those two oppressions then “intersect” to form a far deeper victim identity. “It’s almost like saying there’s a double oppression,” Taylor explains.
This is what leads to the Oppression Olympics, and it goes beyond being just a black woman. One may claim to be LGBTQ, disabled, or a religious minority as well. And because of America’s deep racial guilt and historic quest for justice, claims to these identities can be weaponized against well-meaning people.
The more oppression you claim to face, the more attention you get — and the more attention you can draw to your cause. More than the attention, it breeds sympathy for the harms you claim to have suffered; it offers clout as you stand atop a soapbox claiming to speak truth to power and stand up against those who have kept you down.
This is how we wind up with people like Zyahna Bryant, a morbidly obese black feminist, who declared herself the champion of blacks, women and fat people. Her victim-based activism earned her platforms and glowing features in The New York Times, Teen Vogue and NBC, among many others. It’s the reason she landed a partnership with skincare giant Dove. And it was the reason the whole world believed her when she leveled a false accusation of racism against her fellow University of Virginia student, Morgan Bettinger, during the 2020 summer of riots.
Morgan has faced years of scrutiny over the false accusation that she threatened to hit Bryant and other protesters with her car. She was abandoned by her university, ostracized by her peers, and relentlessly attacked by the media. Meanwhile, Bryant continues to be a media darling. But this is far from an isolated incident.
Well over half, even up to two-thirds, of hate crime hoaxes Reilly has documented have occurred on college campuses. That’s where the victim mentality is most prevalent.
“The BLM effect,” Reilly explains, “was that we were constantly told to listen to black people, or to other minorities. Believe all women, believe all blacks — all that stuff was very commonly said, we’ve all heard it. So I think that when someone came forward with an incredibly dubious story, there was a desire to take it seriously.”
There’s also a psychological aspect. “As humans we’re wired to follow someone of a higher social status,” Taylor explains, “to seek a leader who is charismatic, that we perceive as competent, who has something to offer to you and to the group. When a leader says ‘I’m good, follow me, this other person is bad’ we will attack or pile on the bad.”
“There’s a sense of righteousness, a sense of working toward justice that can motivate people.”
And it’s this sense of justice that has been totally warped in the modern era. America has a complex history with race and justice. For too long, we failed to live up to our principles, but the left refuses to acknowledge just how far we’ve come. From America’s collective guilt, they derive great strength. By virtue of their feigned victim hood, they have convinced Americans that they are champions of justice, when really all they’re fighting for is their own power.
Yet with hoax after hoax being debunked, Americans are finally beginning to wake up from this nightmare. By drawing back the veil on hate crime hoaxes, The Daily Caller aims to bring a sense of justice back to a country that has forgotten the meaning of the word. Watch “Demand for Hate” now to learn more about our culture of victimhood — and how we can stand up to the mob.
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