When I think about the “owning the libs” phenomenon, I’m reminded of an important, if unfortunate, chapter from my own childhood. I was in eighth grade, the last year before high school in my regional district, and I wasn’t applying myself to my studies. My parents were understandably worried and upset, so they sent me to a psychologist who ran a battery of tests. I looked at the Rorschach ink blotters. I still remember that every single one looked sexual to me but I was embarrassed to admit this so I just made up alternative answers. I took my first IQ test and felt better about myself when I got the results. I answered some extensive survey. And then I sat down with the shrink and my parents to discuss whatever it was that he’d found wrong with me.

I still remember the house where this happened, on Spring Street in my home town of Princeton, New Jersey, right across from the bike shop near the intersection with Vandeventer Avenue. I tried to reassure everyone that middle school grades didn’t appear on the transcript for college admissions and that I’d apply myself in 9th Grade when my marks would actually shape my future. The psychologist said that he didn’t believe me. He said that he thought I would not apply myself and that I’d fail.

Whatever he was trying to do in the moment, in that meeting, it didn’t work. I suppose he was trying to call me on my bullshit, and I was guilty of making excuses for my behavior. But he was supposed to be an expert and he’d just run all these tests on me, and I believed him. I didn’t walk out thinking I needed to make some changes. I came out thinking that I was going to do terribly in high school and it was going to ruin my life. And I thought this was because there was something in my nature that I couldn’t change.

When high school began, I fulfilled his prophesy and, if anything, I applied myself even less to my studies than I had before. But I had some pride. I needed to explain this to myself and to others, so I adopted the affectation that none of it mattered. Getting good grades was not a good thing but a positive fault. A year later, I was at boarding school and I had plenty of cause to reevaluate my decisions.

I don’t know how things would have gone differently if that psychologist had tried to give me confidence and encouragement instead. I’m pretty sure it would have been a better approach though. The bottom line is that I reacted badly and made things worse for myself and the next couple of years of my life were very unhappy for me and for my parents.

That’s how I see the “owning the libs” thing. You tell me that I’m stupid, I’m going to say something stupid. You tell me that I’m a racist, I’m going to saying something racist. You tell my I’m disrespectful to women, I am going to say nasty things about women, or gays or foreigners or people of other religions. I’m going to dismiss the importance of science and higher education because I’m not good at science and haven’t gone to college.

If the point is to “trigger” liberals by deliberately offending their sensibilities and trashing the things they value, it’s also coming from a sense of deep inferiority.  It’s a way of making yourself feel “okay” about things you dislike about yourself.

And, sometimes, this can be healthy. People shouldn’t go around hating themselves because they’re bad at school or sports or whatever else they’re told they should be good at. If you’re a good plumber or electrician who is making a decent living, there is no particular reason why you should care that you couldn’t get into Harvard or play professional sports. But when you secretly do value something you’re bad at, that’s when it becomes a self-deluding game. It can be very destructive. Maybe you start picking on the good students because it somehow makes it okay that you’re getting bad grades. Deep down, the bully wishes he was getting good grades and test scores, too.

This is what the Republican Party has become. It’s an organization built for folks who are angry about their own perceived inadequacies. So, they’re here to tell you that their lack of empathy is a virtue, and their meanness is the proper model of masculinity. All those hifalutin ideas people get in college are a load of crap, and experts and scientists are all scamming the rubes with their unproven theories.

They aren’t doing this in a vacuum. It’s true that people get put on the defensive about where they’re from, how they were raised, and how much education they have. A lot of folks feel disrespected, many of them with good cause. But it’s how they react that matters. Adopting a strategy of “owning the libs” is the wrong one. It’s living up to the low expectations others have for you by making their predictions come true.

Ironically, telling these folks that they’re deplorable only makes them more deplorable, just as telling me I was going to be a bad student only made me a worse student. My excuse, if I have one, is that I was 13 years old and very immature. The Republican Party is now made up of adults who don’t want to grow up.