Kim Gardner claims she is the victim of yet another “racially, sexist motivated attack.”
Interestingly, there is no mention of a police investigation into these alleged threats, which if they were true, would be hate crimes.
Why is this news? Because an election is coming on August 4, and Ms. Gardner has to run against her dismal performance for the past four years. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has finally gotten up the nerve to expose her “well-documented incompetence,” in endorsing Mary Pat Carl for Circuit Attorney.
While it’s obvious to anyone in the courthouse that Ms. Gardner “has made a mess of almost everything she has touched,” Gardner’s only defense is to play the same tiresome card she always uses when she is criticized: I’m a victim of a racist, sexist attack.
The poor-Kim narrative is a rhetorical trick, a tactic she and her supporters consistently use to deflect any examination of her performance or decisions away from that particular issue onto a bogeyman. I find this narrative to be repulsive for two reasons. First, it avoids answering the hard questions — which would only portray her in a very bad light. And second, it attempts to prey on our best natures, on our empathy with real victims of sexism and racism, for her own political aspirations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_playing
“Manipulators often play the victim role (‘woe is me’) by portraying themselves as victims of circumstances or someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity or sympathy or to evoke compassion and thereby get something from someone,” according to Wikipedia. “Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering, and the manipulator often finds it easy and rewarding to play on sympathy to get cooperation.”
Wikipedia goes on to say, “While portraying oneself as a victim can be highly successful in obtaining goals over the short-term, this method tends to be less successful over time.”
Let’s hope so. We will see on August 4.