Victims don't have to accept blame for anything, as their victimhood provides a potent excuse for every kind of failure. So when Canberra academic, media election forecaster, and monarchist Malcolm Mackerras was unsuccessful in his bid to win an ACT seat for the Constitutional Convention he quickly put his finger on the reason. He was just another victim. As a male in his fifties, and with a 'Britishness' that went back for five generations, he obviously had no hope against his successful republican counterpart, who was a young woman of 'Asian look'. Welfare states love victims because they are dependent, they justify flourishing bureaucracies, and they are very predictable.
Lawyers love victims because they are very profitable.
Even people who attack the victimhood of others are often keen to be victims themselves. Pauline Hanson, for instance, seems to have cultivated the perfect victim's whine. Certainly, there have always been genuine victims. Even today, there are victims of crime, racial discrimination and sexual harassment. But there are two important differences between traditional victimhood and its present day versions.