Abstract

This essay explores the figure of “liberal tears” as a manifestation of contemporary sadistic conservative discourse in the United States. Sadistic rhetoric betrays an underlying structure of affect where hate and desire coincide. Its primary work is to enforce separation between sadistic subjects and fantasy objects that appeal to them in ways that must be disavowed for their identities to remain coherent. The liberal other is a figure both promising and threatening overwhelming enjoyment. Because of the ways in which it relies on separation and identification to generate enjoyment for its subjects, strategies like satire and empathy are insufficient to respond to sadistic conservative discourses, but rhetoric’s capacity to destabilize identities and undermine certainty remain promising contributions to engaged scholarship.