There is no escaping the culture of victimhood in America today. Many people, politicians in particular, perpetuate a running narrative — whether true or not — in which they are cast as a mighty hero fighting in a just battle against an oppressed underclass. Others are content to be in the martyr role and go to great lengths to show the world their uphill struggle. There are great rewards for this type of “victim chic”: attention, adoration, sympathy, and in many cases victories at the ballot box and in national and state legislatures. The left has this tactic down to a science and has used it like a bludgeon on unsuspecting opponents time after time. They know that a moving story about an aggrieved underdog is much more effective than pie charts depicting a ballooning debt or Medicare Trustees’ reports on future program bankruptcies. The problem is, in many cases, the left has either contrived stories out of whole cloth or has invented entire new classes of victims so that they can elicit our sympathy and, more importantly, our vote. They do it because it is much more effective to play the victim card, even when it’s not true, than to debate an issue on its merits. They do it because it is chic.