Apple, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, Lululemon, Hating Donald Trump.
What do they all have in common? They’re status symbols. People seek to obtain them and once they do, they proudly flaunt them to make it clear to everyone around them, “I’m a cut above.”
For the first five luxury brands I listed off above, that should be obvious. It’s not really a new idea that people today tend to derive a lot of their self-worth from owning expensive luxury brand items.
But the last thing on the list–“Hating Donald Trump”–now with that, it might not be so immediately obvious how status-seeking individuals have turned to politics in order to demonstrate that they’re Just Better Than You.
I realized this after reading this great article in the New York Post about how “luxury beliefs” have become the latest status symbol for the rich in America:
“In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.
People care a lot about social status. In fact, research indicates that respect and admiration from our peers are even more important than money for our sense of well-being.
We feel pressure to display our status in new ways. This is why fashionable clothing always changes. But as trendy clothes and other products become more accessible and affordable, there is increasingly less status attached to luxury goods.
The upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.
One example of luxury belief is that all family structures are equal. This is not true. Evidence is clear that families with two married parents are the most beneficial for young children. And yet, affluent, educated people raised by two married parents are more likely than others to believe monogamy is outdated, marriage is a sham or that all families are the same.”
Just as these college-educated white people are often seen wailing about “white privilege.” It’s all posturing. If they really felt guilty over their “white privilege,” they’d give away all their money and possessions and live in squalor as penance.
“White privilege is the luxury belief that took me the longest to understand, because I grew up around poor whites. Often members of the upper-class claim that racial disparities stem from inherent advantages held by whites. Yet Asian Americans are more educated, have higher earnings and live longer than whites. Affluent whites are the most enthusiastic about the idea of white privilege, yet they are the least likely to incur any costs for promoting that belief. Rather, they raise their social standing by talking about their privilege.
In other words, upper-class whites gain status by talking about their high status. When laws are enacted to combat white privilege, it won’t be the privileged whites who are harmed. Poor whites will bear the brunt.”
The author of the piece, Rob Henderson, brings up a great point: status-seeking affluent Americans and their luxury beliefs are hurting lower-class Americans. Who gets the short end of the stick when it comes to the affirmative action programs these affluent virtue signaling whites call for? Poorer whites. The upper class whites will be just fine: they’re not going to lose out on any jobs, their kids won’t get rejected by top colleges. Lower-class whites will bear the brunt to upper-class whites can feel good about themselves.
And why do you think so many celebrities are encouraging their kids to be transgender nowadays? It’s a social status thing. It’s hip, trendy.
Of course, because the celebrities are doing it, the Regular People want to do it, too. So of course affluent white women are making their kids transgender, too.
And of course, the ultimate “luxury belief” is hatred of Donald Trump. As expected, college-educated white women disapprove of Trump by a margin of 72-26:
Don’t think it’s a coincidence that affluent white women also care the most about what other people think. They’re the most status-conscious people in the country.
In a country where the entire public discourse revolves around race and racism, and where Racists are seen as worse than even murderers, being Not Racist is thereby seen as the height of goodness and virtue.
Hating Trump is really about standing against what Trump is said to stand for, Racism, in other words, the ultimate evil of our time.
“Racists” have become the Most Hated Subgroup in America today. Being called a racist today is like being called a witch in 1620s Salem, Massachusetts, a heretic during the Spanish Inquisition, a Jew in the Gaza Strip, or a Vichy collaborator during the épuration sauvage. “Racists” are public enemy number one.
And Donald Trump is considered to be the leader of the racists, the racist par excellence–the man who Made America Racist Again after we supposedly “Ended Racism” through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Nevermind that racial tensions in America flared up well before Trump started running for President in 2015. Nevermind that the media and the racial grievance industry exploited the shootings of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Michael Brown (Ferguson) in 2014 to stoke a racial hysteria centered on perceived discrimination against black people.
No, the media tells us: Trump alone revived racism in America.
And so it is that Hating Trump is considered a highly desirable status indicator–perhaps the most desirable status indicator.
Nevermind that Trump neither revived racism, nor is racism running rampant in America (well, anti-white racism is, but the media doesn’t count that), the liberal white women still believe it, and act accordingly.