Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Diagnosis: Collective Schizoid Russophobia

Despite, or perhaps because of, the implications it has for ginning up an impeding catastrophic military confrontation between the U.S. and Russia---something the two nations managed to avoid all during the Cold War---I find myself absolutely fascinated by the "Russia did it" madness now sweeping through liberals and the mainstream media regarding the absurd and easily debunkable claim that somehow Putin and his henchmen interfered in the recent U.S. presidential election in a way that tipped the balance of the Electoral College to Donald Trump.

Throughout much of my recent life, I've been as fascinated by conspiracy theories as anyone, and but without exception, such claims must at least pass a basic smell test of being with the realms of feasibility on some level, and must have, if not proof, at least some kernel of rudimentary evidence to begin an investigation towards the truth.

I need at least a wee bit of traction if something is going to sit on my radar screen of interest. In this case, I'm not even sure what the claim is supposed to be, and yet the cable airwaves and Twitter is filled with pundits screaming for vengeance and justice based on absolutely conviction of what supposedly happened. What did happen, exactly? Do tell!

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Over the last two years, I have after all, kept repeating that "many will lose their minds" in the days ahead. But each new level of the madness still catches me off guard, and this one certainly is a type I did not foresee, although it makes perfect sense in retrospect.

The Establishment must do anything to hold onto power, and moreover Hillary and the Left must do anything possible to avoid accepting any sort of responsibility for losing the election, and (most importantly) any sort of self-examination that may lead them question their underlying assumptions about the world. Together these add up to recipe for just about any scale of delusion, it seems, even one that might lead to nuclear war.

To wit:


Watching the above rant from an old failed sports pundit whom I hadn't heard from in years (does he still throw he papers up in the air at the end of each segment in that hip ironic way?), I feel like a psychiatric researcher, clad in a white lab coat, taking notes about a new form of mental disease while observing a patient behind a two-way mirror. If I didn't think the guy was serious, I was consider it brilliant self-promotion as a career revival. Stephen Colbert by contrast is rather hamstrung from going to this level of emotion, given the format of his show.

Only two weeks ago, as the Recount Phase was petering out, I had almost convinced myself that my prediction of widespread madness had been a tad hyperbolic. Now I'm releasing I was more correct that I could have realized. I just could not see what forms this madness would take, and the time frame over which it played out. Madness is always breathtaking in the arrogant way its shocks the senses.  One must remember this. Moreover, it seems to be able to come pretty much out of nowhere to destroy all vestiges of sanity within a matter of days on a collective level, as this example shows.

I have now come to see that the road ahead will be one of a slowly, unfolding train-wreck of emotionally-charged collective delusions and denials of reality, each stage probably more weird and outrageous than the last.

Mimicking the Trump movement itself (because imitation is what liberals do well), the Lefties (serving as the shock troops for a shattered Establishment) will consider this all to be a form of a resistance against tyranny. But in fact it will make things easier for Trump.

As of two weeks ago, many of his hard core supporters were slightly de-energized by the horrifying thought that maybe Trump would pick Mitt Romney as Secretary of State and confirm their worst fears that he was selling out to the Establishment, and would be just another "mainstream Republican" in the end.

This latest round of weirdness has wiped that all away, and pretty much everyone is back to the mindset that if Trump's victory is causing this much insanity and this much chaos, he must surely be the real deal after all. Those who had begun to harbor doubts about him are with him 100% again.

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