In her famous speech at the 1984 GOP national convention, Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick said:

“The American people know that it’s dangerous to blame ourselves for terrible problems that we did not cause. They understand just as the distinguished French writer, Jean Francois Revel, understands the dangers of endless self- criticism and self-denigration. He wrote: ‘Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.’”

She was speaking of a pathological problem with Democrats, the tendency to blame America before considering any other possibility. In the past 37 years, the only thing that has changed is that Kirkpatrick’s “Blame America First” has become “Blame AMERICANS First”, devolving from civilizational blame to the blame of individuals. America is evil because you are evil is the new hotness.

The problem with Democrats goes deeper than politics, in truth, politics is the symptom, the outward expression of something akin to a mental illness. It is not classical narcissism – because it is not really rooted in love of self. Narcissists see others as inferior because they BELIEVE they are superior and simply cannot be wrong. This is almost a negative narcissism because the greatest fear of those affected is that they are inferior, that they are wrong. They carry a deeply rooted sense of frustration brought about by a crippling fear their inferiority will be discovered – and that fear results in striking out at others through blame-shifting.

Democrats are blamers.

We have all known at least one “blamer”. These are people who never take ownership of their own behavior, who, no matter what difficulty they experience, there is always someone or something else to blame for it, but never them. Have you ever heard a Democrat elected official accept responsibility for anything without claiming it was the fault of someone else?

In less than 24 hours, I have heard the following out of Democrat media outlets:

• Everything is caused by racism, but of course, I am not a racist – you are.
• Our policies failed because you did not adequately support them.
• Republicans are evil because they oppose our policies.
• The policy of sending Covid positive patients back to nursing homes did not cause the increase in death rates, it was the staff that infected those people.
• Opposition to our pork-filled “relief” bill means you want to starve kids.
• Lockdowns did not work because stupid people did not do what we said.
• This is a national issue; it is not fair for states that made the problem worse to have to pay for their mistakes.

There are a lot of people who are incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions, always have been. These people are true artists at twisting their reality into a justification of what they tell themselves: that they are simply not responsible for any consequence that results from their own actions (or inactions). So comfortable they are in their self-deception, it becomes somewhat unconscious, almost as autonomic as breathing.

Self-deception is a big limitation that blurs reality. The more out of control the blamer feels, the more their life becomes chaotic and hostile. Unable to accept their own mistakes, blamers believe others are in control of their lives. They see themselves as doing little other than bouncing from stimuli to stimuli like a single cell animal – and when they do act, they tend to act impulsively and subsequently get even more frustrated because the other person will not respond the way the blamer believes they should. The more situations arise, the more people there are to blame for this death spiral – and the allegations become more ludicrous and absurd in response.

Individually, these “blamers” are insufferable, but the bigger issue is when these people gather in a group. These people are not anti-social, far from it – they tend to seek out others like them – other blamers who are willing to engage in perpetual “woe is me” pity parties. Blamers aggregate because there is safety in numbers, the association serves to assuage the fears and feelings of inferiority. The other blamers mutually sooth their insecurities by agreeing that nothing is really their fault and all their issues arise from external sources. The old saying that “Misery loves company” is especially applicable to blamers.

Blamers see the other people as separate from them. They see others as slaves who must satisfy their tyrannical wants, needs and desires. Their perspective is “We command, and you obey”, and if you do not obey, they will make people feel that any misfortune is your responsibility and your fault – and they almost always find ways to make you pay for their mistakes (think of how the recent Covid “relief” bill bails out budget deficits San Francisco and New York State with taxpayer money from states that got it right).

Now imagine this group of blamers is a powerful national political party.

What could possibly go wrong?