Our mentally disturbed candidates
Governor Ron DeSantis texted me the other day. He was “stunned.” Not just disturbed or worried. STUNNED. Democrats had recklessly committed millions to defeat the Republican Senate candidate in Nevada.
Can he really be as disturbed as his fundraising email?
For it takes a lot to stun Ron DeSantis. Florida’s enraged teachers, professors, thought-police victims, CEOs, constituents of various colors, and students ducking AR15s in their classrooms can’t knock him off his pins. He’s stood bravely against critics, people in need of certain medical procedures, and apparently woke citizens concerned about public health. He’s stared them all down. He’s a strong man and, as he frequently labors to demonstrate, a man’s man.
But Democrats devoting millions to defeating the GOP Senate candidate in Nevada? The governor can’t believe it.
And, just in case I didn’t get the point, he texted me again the next day. By then, he was FURIOUS.
These are people, mind you, who we’re supposed to take seriously.
The end is near
The governor’s message was actually among the least hysterical of the three days of political fundraising emails and messages from across the spectrum I collected for this post. They urgently warned of tragedy, bankruptcy, invasion, oppression, floods of fentanyl, surprise medical bills, expensive gas, white supremacy, minority takeovers, murder, death and probably worse.
In her emails, Nancy Pelosi is alternatively “stunned,” “done,” “heartbroken” and, in twice-daily pivots that could suggest a mood disorder, “overjoyed.”
Joe Biden, an outraged opponent said, was not just signing but joyfully signing something “that could be America’s death certificate.” Even from gorgeous Montana, one candidate warns “America is on the brink of destruction.” Mark Kelly’s opponent “wants you to be hopeless.”
Another candidate reports Democrats are raising “more than $12 million for the ‘right’ to kill babies.” Still another warned an opponent will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Uh, wait…
Mentally disturbed
Frenzied ravings of doom are normally the province of madmen on the street, psych ward patients, and a few preachers. But politics, never normal, dwells in the sunless depths of abnormality.
These days, of course, it’s easy and cheap to bury us in these messages. You can raise money nationally, well beyond one’s district. It’s also easy and cheap to identify the people likely to donate to you and, at the same time, are unlikely to laugh at how ridiculous your accusations are.
You hope the demagogues don’t believe what they’re selling. Thanks to the January 6th hearings, some are willing to confess it on the record.
And we’ve learned how even a half-drunk, truly loopy Rudy Giuliani election night fraud fantasy can turn into a huge, national poop emoji. The recipe:
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- Concoct an absurdity.
- Add generous portions of outrage.
- Strain remaining residue of decency.
- Add finely chopped solemn oaths.
- Stir at top blender speed.
- Chill until rules of law turn gelatinous.
- Serve with music and social media (add a bed of lettuce for donor dinners).
- Repeat.
Of course the alternative – that candidates actually do believe it – is hardly comforting. After endless repetition of their nonsensical extrapolations, paranoid ravings, pathetic neediness, big-chested assertions of special and even divine knowledge, many leaders embrace them as truths.
And that, in turn, would be a definition of being clinically disturbed.
Gay Marines.
Rear Admiral (Ret.) and former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson, for example, sees us hurtling toward a dystopian “Woke Wasteland” of Americans who tolerate and even support gay Marines. (This from a fellow whose two alcohol “incidents,” one unexplained “incident,” and “sexual and denigrating comments” about a female subordinate led Department of Defense investigators to “raise concerns about his ability to provide medical care to the President.” He is the medical professional, moreover, who diagnosed former President Trump as “a stable genius.”)
“The Socialist Left,” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy warns, is astoundingly malevolent. It wants to do nothing less than to “take away our Second Amendment Rights, destroy our borders and create chaos in our communities.” As if that’s not enough, it will impose “Draconian nationwide mandates.”
A “Dark Triad” of disturbing symptoms
I’m not being entirely facetious. Rabidly demonizing opponents amounts to clinically serious schadenfreude, finding joy in others’ misfortunes. Carried too far, schadenfreude “can indicate a mental health condition.”
To put a finer point on it, the literature says these wild accusations may be related to an ominous “Dark Triad,” defined as a heady mix of “narcissism, Machiavellian behavior, and psychopathy.”
A lot of us do break down and help these addled people. We donate. But whatever peace our money gives them is transitory. Apres donation, they’re soon back with fresh fusillades of alarm.
Lies don’t “have to be realistic”
Poets, writers, and producers know it’s not all that hard to induce an audience’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” They will tell you that big lies and campaign emails, etc. “do not have to be realistic. They only have to be internally consistent.” It is, in short, possible to fool enough of the people more than enough of the time.
This isn’t new. Instilling fear is a well-worn and reliable path to power. And, as we’ve seen, believe a mere handful of these shameless liars and the wheels can come off even an historically powerful republic.