Abstract
American political discourse in the era of Tea Parties, Donald Trump, and ‘#BiackLivesMatter’ is suffused with Nietzschean ressentiment. Left critical theorist Wendy Brown’s ‘wounded attachments’ characterize civil rights protesters, multiculturalists, anti-tax activists, and Christian conservatives alike: all are grounded in an identity thoroughly constituted by foundational wounding, which then provides a continuing impulse to fixate on perceived wrongs as the basis for political community. Rather than lamenting this, however, I defend ressentiment from the vantage point of a renewed Left in the United States. This paper explores a strategic reclamation of ressentiment ‘well-used,’ argues that its employment in past liberation struggles has been crucial to the successes of the Left, and proposes several specific tactics in political rhetoric and mobilization, including: (a) embracing victim/enemy narratives, (b) cultivating anger, and (c) deploying effective lies rather than ineffective truths.
