American politics once revolved around ideas — tax reform, national defense, energy independence, health care. But one side of the aisle has abandoned the work of persuasion for the theater of grievance. The modern left no longer campaigns on what it can build but on what has supposedly been done to it.

Victimhood has become the left’s organizing principle. The emotional currency of grievance has replaced the intellectual currency of ideas. That shift isn’t just cynical; it’s corrosive. It undermines the American spirit of self-reliance, accountability, and perseverance — the virtues that built this country in the first place.

Let others compete for who has suffered most. America’s story has never been written by its victims — only by its victors.

Consider New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Last month, he delivered a tearful campaign speech recalling how his “aunt stopped taking the subway after 9/11 because she didn’t feel safe in her hijab.” The story went viral. Media outlets rushed to elevate it as another morality play about post-9/11 Islamophobia.

Within days, however, fact-checkers discovered that the “aunt” didn’t live in New York City — and wasn’t his aunt at all but his father’s cousin. The story collapsed, but the damage was done.

Even if the tale were true, Mamdani’s framing was an insult to truth. His version turned the “victim” of 9/11 into someone who merely felt uncomfortable. The real victims were the firefighters who ran into burning towers, the police who breathed toxic dust for months, the passengers of Flight 93 who fought back knowing they would die, the families who never saw their loved ones again. To recast that national tragedy as a story about personal unease is moral inversion.

Privilege posing as persecution

Mamdani is no symbol of oppression. He was born in Uganda to two global elites: filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. Educated at elite institutions, including Bowdoin College in Maine, he embodies privilege — not persecution.

He’s not alone. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has built her career on the same inversion. A graduate of Boston University, raised in a comfortable Westchester suburb, AOC is a product of the meritocracy she derides. Her father was an architect; her family owned a home. Yet her political persona depends on playing the perpetual underdog — the marginalized woman of color silenced by “the patriarchy.”

When criticized, she doesn’t answer with arguments but with emotion. Dissent becomes “hate.” Opposition becomes “bigotry.” As Newsweek once put it, “AOC’s weaponized victimhood undermines women.”

Grievance as status

This inversion — privilege masquerading as oppression — reveals something deeper about the left’s political psychology. Victimhood now confers moral authority. The more wounded you appear, the more virtuous you become. Pain is power.

But grievance politics reshapes the citizen’s role in democracy. Instead of the proud American who builds and contributes, we get the dependent petitioner, perpetually wronged and perpetually in need of government rescue. The state becomes therapist and provider, not guardian of liberty.

That’s why so many progressive campaigns sound like group therapy sessions. The message isn’t, “Here’s how we’ll improve schools or secure the border.” It’s, “Here’s who hurt us, and here’s who must atone.” The goal isn’t reform — it’s retribution.

The vanishing of virtue

When politics becomes a contest of feelings, truth and accountability vanish. Success is no longer measured by safer streets, better jobs, or stronger families, but by how “seen” or “unsafe” someone feels. Emotional satisfaction replaces objective progress.

But the American promise was never about comfort. It was about courage — the willingness to build, to sacrifice, to endure. This nation doesn’t owe its strength to grievance but to grit.

Think back to 9/11. The real victims weren’t the politically convenient ones. They were the firefighters who ran toward the towers, the police who never came home, the husbands and wives who never got to say goodbye, the children who grew up without parents. To twist their sacrifice into a sermon on discomfort dishonors them.

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Photo by Bloomberg / Getty Images

From grievance to gratitude

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. One version of politics says, “I was wronged, therefore I deserve.” The other says, “I was blessed, therefore I will serve.” The left has built a moral economy where pain is currency. Conservatives must offer a different creed — one grounded in purpose, gratitude, and resilience.

Freedom, not fairness, defines America’s promise. Adversity refines character; it doesn’t define it. As the nation nears its 250th birthday, we should remember who we are — a people forged by hardship and lifted by hope.

Let others compete for who has suffered most. We’ll compete for who can spread the most good. America’s story has never been written by its victims — only by its victors.