BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
You may have noticed. The Left often speaks of victimhood. They use it to gain power, silence foes, and hold the stage. They draw on tales of race, gender, class, and the earth itself.
At its core, victimhood means feeling wronged, made small by others. In the public sphere, it pulls at the heart and claims the moral high ground. The Left used to wield this tool well, spinning stories of oppressors and the oppressed. The more deluded among them still believe it casts them as champions of justice, fairness, and change. Victimhood becomes their escape, their defence—a card Labour’s Jess Phillips played recently, citing ‘death threats’ to counter heated demands for a public inquiry on rape gangs.
Look to history. The Civil Rights Movement proved the power of this tactic. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the pain and struggle of Black Americans. His words moved hearts and changed laws. Here, victimhood was real, its use just. Today, the Left often takes this to absurd extremes. They shrink their souls with their simulations.
They simplify the world, casting all women as prey to patriarchy, all men as wolves. Such views push away allies and miss life’s grey shades.
Race and identity fuel the fire. Terms like ‘white privilege’ and ‘microaggressions’ highlight, within reason, deep and hidden wrongs. Movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) once brought real issues like police violence to light. But they painted with broad strokes, portraying all minorities as victims and the system as an unyielding beast. This framing robbed people of their power, making them seem helpless before fate. And then, characteristically, BLM were destroyed by fraud from within.
The same holds true for gender and sexuality. In gay rights battles, the Left speaks of wounds, many real. But they dwell so much on pain that they forget strength. Stories of struggle and loss dominate, overshadowing progress and triumphs, often trapping people as the wronged when they must stand as equals. The Left can never run out of victims, so the ‘T’ and ‘Q’, the ‘I’ and ad infinitum.
So many gays have been pushed rightwards in recent years.
Class struggle runs deep in this, too. Marx spoke of workers crushed under the weight of the rich. Today, the cry echoes. Movements like Occupy Wall Street tell of the poor trampled by the wealthy. Yet this view is too neat, too clean. It casts the rich as villains and the poor as saints, ignoring life’s twists and turns. Worse, it dulls the drive to act, leaving some feeling they can never rise from their lot as if the world is a rigged game of Snakes & Ladders.
Even the earth plays a part in this ‘victim’ tale. For the Left paints the planet as a victim, scarred by greed and neglect. Figures like Greta Thunberg (often on their iPhones and sporting oil-based anoraks) claim they speak for the earth and for the poor bearing the brunt of harm. Their cause might be seen by some as just, but their tone often leans to despair. It leaves people feeling small and powerless when what they need is hope and the tools to build a better world.
There is a darker side too. The Left’s use of victimhood can silence dissent. To question them risks being called cruel, blind, or worse. This stifles talk, deepens divides, and turns potential allies into enemies.
In May 2023, I witnessed this firsthand. Representing this magazine in a High Court defamation case in London, we brought in the police after receiving actual death threats from animal rights terrorists. The judge acknowledged the threats at the start of the day’s hearing. For two hours, we were the victims. Then the judge announced that he had been told that the then girlfriend of Chris Packham the plaintiff, had that morning received rape threats—a claim few believed and for which zero evidence was provided when requested later.
In the game of victimhood, no one out-victims those adept at playing the hate-victim dialectic. Prepare to be classed as the ‘oppressor’ or the ‘hater’ should you dare close in on their martyr throne.
The Left’s focus on wounds shapes minds and cultures. Too often, it teaches people to see themselves as harmed, not whole. It makes them wait for rescue instead of standing tall. In the rush to be the most wronged, true pain—if they feel it at all—becomes drowned in a sea of smaller cries.
The Left’s use of victimhood is both sword and shield. It has exposed wrongs and stirred the world to act. But today it risks going too far, oversimplifying, and dividing.
If the Left wishes to lead again, they must speak of hope as well as hurt, of strength as well as sorrow. They must learn to honour Truth. Until then they are the hypocrites, the fakers, the victims of their own faux victimhood and they merit nothing less than the everyday shellacking that all liars are due.
Dominic Wightman is the Editor of Country Squire Magazine, works in finance, and is the author of five and a half books.