Owning the Libs: The Contemporary Politics of Envy

Abstract: This essay defines Owning the Libs (OTL), a logic of envy, characterized by a subject's need to both deny another enjoyment and to frustrate the capacity of these political opponents to live. My case studies focus on reactions to progressive protests in the post-Ferguson environment. OTL is not downstream of some cultural war nor an exotic right-wing, illiberal phenomenon. Situating personhood in the tradition of violent dispossession, I illuminate the practice's liberal roots, before concluding OTL will be (if it is not already) US conservatism's policy agenda, and an existential threat to progressive agitation.