Weapon
The Weaponization of Community
When we use the word Community in context of politics it is more than likely referring to the commonalities that exists between a group of people. The closer nit the group the stronger the community and the more power they have in influencing the political agenda. When referring to commonalities it is easy to see and recognize some of them. Immediately race, religion, age, gender, social standing, income, education, are a few that come to mind. When a community is unified, they present themselves as a more intimidating political foe.
There is an adage “Divide and Conquer” which implements the strategy of taking a large group and by creating wedge issues within the Community their power is reduced. Many times, these wedge issues fall along already stressed lines like race, gender, and age. Throw in a constant which Marx centered his philosophy on which is oppressed vs oppressor and you have created the “victim class.”
By creating a victim class, you have created a community with commonalities that are generally emotionally based and easily contriv
ed. Creating a common enemy is relatively easy as since the victim is not responsible for his or her own plight there must be someone who is at fault for their situation. Once you have established the victim class and you want to control the power they have as a community all a political power must do is offer to come to their rescue, offer to be the solution to their problems and you have harnessed the power of community.
The solutions are almost always relieving the victim class of their personal accountability and responsibility. It commonly infers the victim class doesn’t have the ability to manage or control their own lives. That the assistance becomes a societal issue and if you oppose the solution to the victim class’s problems then you are deemed a hater and the slanderous name-calling begins. Words like racist, homophobe, misogynous, xenophobe, capitalist, conspiracy theorist, deplorable, fascist, nazi and of course Hitler are a top of the hit list.