She is the literal personification of shit rolling downhill. A white man slights her, her husband slaps, or dismisses her, and being too afraid to lash out at the white men who demean her (after all, that’s where her bread and butter lay), she turns around and kicks the Mexican immigrant groundskeeper, or screams at her Black nanny!

Or in an effort to experience some/any level of power, she tries to throw her weight around with a total stranger she thinks is less than, who is as dismissive of her as the white men in her life.

Where is her power? Who can she control? It must be incredibly galling to be spoken back to and/or disregarded by both White men, and “her inferiors”.

But as much as she hates being disregarded by white men, she knows he will move Heaven and Hell, and commit any kind of atrocity, to protect her from a person of color, to protect an innocent white damsel! Where is her White Knight, the police officer? Those heavily armed and angry white men will put that “lackey” in their place.

And in that person’s agony, she can vicariously enjoy the little bit of power she does possess. The ability to call in the nuclear option of “white man with a gun”. He won’t ever die for her, (she’s not that important to him), but he will happily kill for her.

And “The Karen” knows this on an almost instinctual level.