Scapegoating in Minneapolis
When I started working on a book project more than three years ago, it was not my intention to write a book about current events. And yet, I think that book (Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective) has much to contribute to an understanding of this moment in America. It seems that scapegoating is “having a day.”
To review: Rene Girard’s “mimetic theory” and the related “scapegoat mechanism” is an attempt to explain the emergence of archaic religion. [See my Substack post of March 26, 2025 for a more extensive discussion; or chapter 1 in the book.] In brief, primitive human groups above a certain size were constantly threatened by internal anarchy and mimetic rivalry (i.e., we want what others want, simply because they want it). They “solved” this problem by stumbling onto “the scapegoat mechanism,” whereby (completely unconsciously) a single “scapegoat” was identified, blamed for all the community’s problems, and killed by mob violence (classically by stoning, where everyone and therefore no one is responsible). What had been all-against-all rivalry was thereby transformed into all-against-one solidarity (but at the expense of the unfortunate scapegoat).
The Hebrew Scriptures show that, for whatever reason, the ancient Hebrews were uniquely sensitive to the plight of victims. Girard summarizes the biblical narrative as a slow and gradual shift from the guilt of scapegoats in archaic religion, to the innocence of victims. This process culminated in the passion and crucifixion of Jesus, which unveiled for all time that this scapegoat mechanism was not about “sacred violence” (i.e., violence sanctioned by God) but human violence projected into the heavens.
This shift took the Hebrew people many centuries to accomplish, but this past weekend we saw the shift from the guilt of the scapegoat to the innocence of the scapegoat unfold in real time in Minneapolis. Within two hours of the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old VA nurse, administration propagandists began to label him as “a domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing a gun,” intent on causing “maximum damage” by “massacring” law enforcement agents, who then responded by firing “defensive shots.” In a word, Pretti was being made into a classic scapegoat, blamed for his own death.
Within a matter of a very few hours, bystander videos emerged that forcefully contradicted the government’s narrative. Alex Pretti was not brandishing a gun, but a cell phone. When he paused to help a woman whom agents had pushed to the ground and pepper-sprayed, Pretti himself was pepper-sprayed at close range and then tackled and subdued by at least six masked agents. In the ensuing scuffle, one agent apparently removed a handgun (properly registered and legal under Minnesota law) from Pretti’s waistband or holster, at which point agents executed—I use that word deliberately—him by firing at least ten rounds at close range, all within five seconds. A sworn statement by a physician who came upon the scene within a minute or two and who requested to evaluate and attempt resuscitation, said that the border patrol agents were not attempting to render first-aid, but at that point “just counting bullet holes.”
In the two days since the murder, administration officials have only doubled down on their rhetoric of vilification and demonization. The whole world can see that these are lies (the timeline and substance of these lies is documented in today’s Guardian, in an article under the headline “Trump officials continue to push lies after fatal shooting of Alex Pretti”).
In the ancient world, the scapegoat mechanism could successfully produce group cohesion (albeit at the expense of an innocent victim), because the process was unanimous and remained totally unconscious. That is no longer possible in today’s world. In modern usage, we know what a scapegoat is, in a way the ancient world did not: an innocent person unfairly singled out and blamed for something they did not do. Today, the scapegoating process no longer produces unanimity. Someone is bound to name what is really happening—or produce a cell phone video that demonstrates the truth.
In Girard’s view, scapegoating in the modern world has become less and less effective as a direct result of the Christian Gospel, now universalized and secularized in what he calls “the modern concern for victims.” But just because the scapegoating mechanism is no longer very effective does not mean that it has disappeared; in fact, those intent on scapegoating flail about with more and more ineffective attempts to blame their victims, and claim that they are the victims. Girard says we have now arrived at a point where we compete to determine who is the more genuine and deserving victim, giving rise to “the virtually universal feeling of being victimized. . . [with] each person vehemently insisting that he is the victim.”[1]
Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino (dressed as always in his brown-shirt uniform, which seems intended to evoke Hitler’s brown-shirt paramilitary thugs) went so far as to claim that it was his border patrol agents who were “the real victims.” This makes the following comment by Girard seem prescient:
One can persecute today only in the name of being against persecution. One can only persecute persecutors. You have to prove that your opponent is a persecutor in order to justify your own desire to persecute.[2]
I think this explains the administration’s otherwise inexplicable and dehumanizing rhetoric about “domestic terrorists,” “violent anarchists,” and an “invasion by violent aliens,” and that their efforts to deport only involve “the worst of the worst,” “heinous criminals” (two phrases of which they are especially fond), despite the evidence of our eyes. They seek to persuade us that they (or we?) are the real victims, and so claim license to deploy roving bands of masked paramilitary agents to randomly apprehend immigrants (and even citizens who look like they “might be immigrants”) off the streets, breaking car windows, deploying pepper spray and tear gas against legal protestors, arresting and deporting mostly those with no criminal record, breaking into homes without a warrant, arresting five-year old children, and reacting with unrestrained violence to citizens exercising their first amendment rights.
It will not work. For all with eyes to see, we can see who the victims are. It is not the masked men with guns, but the citizens with whistles and cell phone cameras—and, let us not forget, the immigrants being arrested and deported, with little or no attempt at due process.
[1] Rene Girard, The One by Whom Scandal Comes, p. 73.
[2] Girard, Evolution and Conversion, p. 184.
Thank you; this is clarifying!
Thank you Tom!