White man derangement syndrome

After hearing a clearly traumatized woman make credible accusations of attempted rape against a Supreme Court nominee, a white man who very likely will help eliminate a woman's right to have an abortion, Senator Lindsey Graham launched into an uncontrolled tirade against the injustice of the accusations. He seemed to inspire the nominee himself to engage in his own uncontrolled tirade of self-pity, decrying the public humiliation he has suffered and the death threats made against him and his family.

Lacking in either man's outburst was any hint he had processed even a tiny part of the trauma suffered by the woman who was attacked, trauma which included not just having to relive the incident before many skeptical senators and a nationwide TV audience, but both public humiliation and death threats that forced her and her family to go into seclusion prior to the hearing.

These two white men — one a United States senator, the other a federal judge under consideration for a Supreme Court seat — could only find room for indignation about the white male nominee's suffering. They could only lament their own powerlessness against the enormous "injustice" being done to them.

I call it White Man Derangement Syndrome.

Zack Beauchamp at Vox calls it "white male backlash". As Beauchamp puts it:

“I will not shut up” is a perfect mantra for Trumpian backlash politics. There is no risk that white men are, en masse, going to be silenced: They occupy the commanding heights of power in every walk of American life. The demands that they be quiet at times are a response to the overrepresentation of their voices, that they understand what life is like for more vulnerable people and then change the way they act accordingly.

But Graham is not willing to give even that little ground.

Sen. Graham shamed both himself and the Senate. Let this be his political epitaph.

Any lingering inclination to give Judge Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt vanished after his petulant whining and unabashed evasion of awkward questions. Whether he can be proven Christine Blasey Ford's attacker, he has proven beyond any doubt that he lacks the self-control, sense of responsibility and moral sense that a Supreme Court Justice must have.

Both of these white men demonstrated with stunning clarity the unhinged paranoia and blinding self-pity lurking at the heart of modern conservatism.