Roblog

From 2019, but perhaps even more relevant now. B. D. McClay argues that we’re in an era characterised by sore winners:

“Call the 2010s the decade of the sore winner: the underdogs that are top dogs, the upstarts who are establishment. It’s Taylor Swift’s decade as much thanks to her affect as her music. But it’s not just Taylor. Donald Trump is a sore winner. So is Brett Kavanaugh. Every Washington figure who blames ‘Washington’ for their failure to deliver on their promises is a sore winner. Hillary Clinton is not a sore winner – she’d have to win – but she has, it must be said, the vibe. (Recall, for instance, her reaction to being referred to as a member of the establishment.)”

McClay ponders the causes…

“The sore winner is a product of the hyper-surveilled and personalized world in which we all now live, one in which people feel both nebulously responsible for everything wrong while also feeling responsible for nothing at all. Power is contextual, responsibility often has to be accepted by people who aren’t at fault, and the grain of irritation around which the sore winner’s elaborate deflections and defenses occur sometimes represents something at least a little bit real.”

…and has a go at formulating some solutions, too.