The Other Pandemic

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) provides that a diagnosis of delusional disorder is made if a person has “non-bizarre” delusions (meaning things that could happen in real life, such as being stalked by someone, as opposed to, say, seeing flying elephants) for at least one month and does not have the characteristic symptoms of other psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. 

Recent polls showed that 52% of Republicans believe that Trump won the election and 56% of Republicans believe that the QAnon conspiracy theory is “mostly or partly true” (33% believe it is “mostly true”).     As a reminder, Forbes magazine described the QAnon thesis as follows:   “President Trump is defending the planet from a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles (consisting mostly of Hollywood celebrities, liberal politicians and "deep-state" government officials) who are running a secret child sex-trafficking ring”  (the ever-sober Forbes omitted the more sensational non-core elements of QAnon belief, such as these same folks harvesting children’s blood).  

Both these delusions are not only unsupported by any evidence, but are easily disproven (and have been).   On their face, in the usually more restrained words of Forbes, they are “preposterous” and “outlandish.”   They are not opinions or beliefs, they are delusions.

With at least 245 million voting age Americans, 30% of whom most recently identified themselves as Republican, that means that about 38 million of our fellow citizens suffer from the delusion that Trump won and 24 million believe the QAnon conspiracy to be “mostly true.”

So as we enter 2021 America finds itself in the grip of two pandemics.  COVID has infected over 14 million Americans.   The 24-38 million delusional Republicans, most presumably being non-schizophrenic, and having persisted in these delusions for over a month, comprise a pandemic far more severe and perhaps more consequential than COVID: a pandemic of delusional disorder.  

While this disorder, unlike COVID, does not generally threaten the lives of the afflicted, it does make them vulnerable to mendacious politicians, con men, and hucksters of all kinds (the current President leading the way by conning mostly small donors, following the election, out of $200 million).   Most importantly, though, this second pandemic does threaten the life of the country.   Democratic government cannot be sustained with over half of one of our two political parties afflicted by a disabling delusion.   I say “disabling,” because you cannot freely exercise your rights as a voter when your judgment and discretion have been warped or coopted by a delusional conviction.    And the democratic system collapses when a critical mass of citizens no longer accepts elections as free and fair.

This second pandemic should be receiving equal time on the news feeds, nightly news, and front pages.   Psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists should help us understand the causes of this outbreak of mass hysterical delusion.  David Brooks argued that conspiracy theories take hold among “low status” groups that feel powerless; but within weeks acknowledged that this didn’t explain why “the neurosurgeon down the street” (neither low status nor powerless) believed that the election was fraudulent.  We have a strong grip on the causes and proper treatment of COVID-19.  But we don’t yet understand the delusional disorder pandemic, and until we understand it, we won’t know how to treat it.

Ultimately, this pandemic of delusion ­­– and not COVID ­– will present the knottiest challenge to the new Biden administration.  Left undiagnosed and untreated, it will power and sustain hyper-partisanship, political dysfunction, and the fracturing of the nation into irreconcilable camps through the Biden administration and beyond.

An Election Morning Fantasy

Please indulge the idle fantasy of a quiet election day morning.  I’m dreaming that this is the speech delivered by the winner:

My fellow Americans, and I mean all Americans, those who voted for me, those who voted for the other guy, and those who didn’t vote at all.   

 I’m not going to make a victory speech. While I appreciate all who worked hard for our campaign and who came out to vote, I want to be clear – what happened today wasn’t and isn’t about me.   What happened today was about something else.

During the campaign the thing I heard over and over from Americans of all political persuasions is that they didn’t like this division of our country into warring red and blue camps, not one bit, and that they were looking for a leader who could unite us, not divide us.    That starts tonight.

First, the yelling has to stop.  I am going to speak to Americans as the intelligent good people they are, not just some mob to be fired up and manipulated.   How can we expect Americans to trust their government if their government doesn’t trust them?

Second, this is a moment when we all need to step back and focus on our deepest values.  When I was a child, I used to go to my grandmother with my problems.  Her advice was often the same:  the ends don’t justify the means.  It doesn’t matter how much you want something, she would say, that doesn’t justify doing something you know is wrong.   You can always make up a story to convince yourself that lying or cheating or mistreating someone to get what you want is OK.  That’s what weak people do, and before you know it they don’t know right from wrong.

Think about it, folks.  That’s where our politics went off the rails, and it all came to a climax during the past four years.    Our leaders lied and lied and lied and said it was for a good cause.   And they broke America’s word, betrayed our allies, embraced dictators, separated children from their families – so many things we all knew were wrong – and said it was OK because they needed to do it to achieve their political goals.  That stops tonight.  America tells the truth, keeps the faith with our allies, and does the right thing. 

The third thing is that we’re going to put the “public” back in public service.  Another one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings was “it’s not all about you.”   Well, folks, that’s not an easy message for a budding politician to hear.  But I heard it, not only from my grandmother but from the nuns at my school.  I learned that all the great virtues – kindness, compassion, charity, love – are all about escaping the trap of the ego, escaping the illusion that it’s all about you.  And folks, it’s also at the heart of public service – putting the interests of the country and its people above your own.  

So tonight, I want to say the following to everyone in government and who may wish to join my administration:  Your loyalty must be to the constitution and the country, not to me.   You must speak truth to power – telling me what I don’t want to hear is your highest responsibility.  And to our career public servants – the military, the scientists, diplomats, intelligence and law enforcement officials – all those who have spent their lifetimes building up expertise and putting that at the service of their country – you must be honest, independent and above politics.  Your role is to serve the country, not the political interests of the party in power or of the incumbent President.   Your job is to come up with solutions to the problems faced by the American people, not a stream of gestures and actions intended to please my political base. 

I cannot heal this country’s wounds alone.   I need help.   Here’s what I’m going to be asking for in the coming weeks:

·      Every American should ask herself or himself where they are getting their information.   Are you exposed to diverse points of view?   Do you ask yourself every time you are on-line who is the source of the information you are seeing?  If you need medical information, please be sure you’re getting it from a doctor.  If it’s a question of science, make sure the information comes from a scientist.    Be on your guard.  Every time you go on line extremely powerful forces – including political extremists and America’s adversaries – are trying to manipulate you for their own purposes.  Don’t let them.   

·      I ask the press to step back and think seriously about its responsibility for America’s current division.   I ask you to clearly separate your journalistic and editorial content.  I ask you to tone it down – please turn down the volume.  I ask you all to help rebut the misinformation and conspiracy nonsense that spreads its poison online, to turn to real experts, not political pundits or ideologues with an agenda, as the guests on your shows and sources for your stories.  You are not the enemies of the people, you are the guarantors of the people’s liberty.

And to each American I ask that you give us a chance.   One of the lowest moments in American politics during my lifetime was when the other party announced at the beginning of President Obama’s term that it would do everything possible to ensure that the President failed in everything he did.   America then faced terrible problems – not political problems, but real world problems affecting every American that needed to be solved, not to mention challenges from adversaries around the world.  Of course each side could advocate for the solutions it favored – but to wish for failure and obstruct everything just because it was being done by the other party was a terrible thing.    It’s cost was enormous.   And this legacy was compounded by the more recent practice of putting politics above even basic competence.  These things left us with a health care system that fails millions and is too expensive for those it does service, with millions of unemployed, unconscionable wage disparity, an addiction epidemic, families feeling hopeless and whole communities feeling left behind.  It’s left us, the world’s richest country, with one of the world’s highest death rates from COVID and a virus still spreading unchecked.  It’s left us with problems of racial and social justice which are long, long overdue for solution, crumbling infrastructure, and country already bearing the ravages of unchecked climate change.  America’s standing in the world has plummeted and its crucial alliances are frayed.  Let’s agree to have spirited debates on exactly how to tackle these problems, but let’s agree to work together to solve them, one way or another.   

I didn’t win a great victory tonight, I answered a cry for help.   Today America hired me to do a really tough job.   But I can’t succeed unless we back away from the precipice that Abe Lincoln warned us about when he said that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  This will require every one of you, however you voted, helping to change the way we’ve been doing politics in this country.  I promise to you that I’ll do my part, and I hope and pray that you do yours.

Last Chance

We don’t have to wait until November 3.  The President has told the American people they cannot rely on the results of the election as fair or honest.  The results, he says, “may never be accurately determined.”  So much for the election.  Where does that leave us?

First, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He’s not waiting for the news cycle to throw up the normal electoral glitches and mistakes, which can then be inflated and distorted to fit his narrative.  He’s actually working every day to ensure that the election is mired in conflict, suspicion, intimidation, violence, endless litigation, and overall chaos.  It will be a mess. 

The naïve might ask, why undermine the election now, when it’s still possible (very possible, actually) that he could win.  That’s easy.  In Trump world, you can turn on a dime, with no accountability for what came before.   Before the midterms, American was under attack by massive caravans of violent mobs.  The risk was so great that the military was mobilized to the southern border to repel the attack.   The day after the election, did you hear another word about caravans?  No.  They disappeared as if they had never existed in the first place.  That’s what happens with election fraud if Trump wins.  Turns out it wasn’t so bad, and his overcoming it just adds to the luster of his glorious victory.

Thanks to Trump, the sole remaining prop to our democracy – public faith in the election system - is gone.  Somewhere between 34-45% of Americans will take him at this word:  the election cannot be fair.  Scan the global press:  America’s many friends around the world are devastated.  Its enemies are jubilant.

Can anything be done?  The most critical law enforcement and other governmental institutions have been gutted or politicized, so they won’t help us.  Republicans in Congress (and most Republican governors) have forfeited any expectation that they will do the right thing.   Pew surveys show American’s trust in their public institutions at historic lows.

So it’s up to us, both as individuals and acting through the civil society institutions in which we participate.   Look at the wave of commitment to anti-racism this summer – it’s on the home page of almost every organization.  We need the same kind of commitment to this election.  American elections work.  Trust the vote.  The messages are simple and they must come from local officials, celebrities, influencers, big tech, college presidents, trade associations, charities, doctors, unions, and artists.  You must demand it, and it has to happen now.

Are you scared and angry?  If not, all is lost.  Take a look at a Trump rally video; look at the anger, at the righteous certainty.   These people are motivated.   An imbalance of passion between extremists and moderates is natural.   So you need to become an extremist – not on any of the ideological or policy issues that divide the parties, but an extremist in defense of the one last thing we might possibly be able to agree on:  American elections work.  We need to trust the vote.  After all, what’s the alternative?  Without trust in elections, there is only the chaos in which demagogues flourish, and prosperity, security, and freedom collapse. 

Inversions

Reading the Republican convention coverage this morning, I noticed one reporter after another expressing bewilderment at the GOP strategy of taking all the worst vulnerabilities of the Trump record, and meeting them head-on by asserting the opposite:  Trump saved America from the pandemic, is the immigrants’ best friend, battles for the rights of women and minorities, has restored respect for America in the eyes of the world, etc. Those reporters need to study their history.

Spinning and rationalizing are the stuff of normal politics, and even public lies are in the traditional toolbox in circumstances where the politician is unlikely to get caught.  But the distinctive break from prior norms ­ – amply evident in Trump’s 2016 campaign and from the first days of his administration – is the continual assertion of the opposite of easily verifiable facts (e.g., calling the embarrassingly thin inauguration turnout the biggest in history, calling the GOP’s walloping in the 2018 midterms a “big victory,” etc., etc.). 

This shift from manipulative spin to aggressive assertion of the direct inverse of easily verifiable facts has long been understood to be a clear symptom of the transition to authoritarianism:  

 “O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’  ‘Four.’  ‘And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?'”  (George Orwell, 1984, Part 3, Chapter 2)

 In 1984, authoritarianism requires a citizen to “reject the evidence of [his] eyes and ears” and makes common sense itself “[t]he heresy of heresies.”  Slogans are all unabashed inversions: War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength!   At rallies, people chant inversions over and over.  Inversions stream 24/7 from “telescreens,” as they do now into millions of households via Fox. Orwell was doing nothing more than fictionalizing the shifts to authoritarian rule he had observed during his own life and projecting how the rise of technology would increase, rather than mitigate, the risk.

So here we are.  Fox News, conceived by Roger Ailes as an ideological propaganda juggernaut, is “fair and balanced.”  The Mexicans, who of course oppose the wall, will “pay for it.”   When world leaders shake their heads in disbelief and horror at Trump’s latest blunder, he says they all called “to congratulate me.”  When North Korea becomes more aggressive following the rogue regime’s legitimization by the US, Trump has “brought peace to the Korean peninsula.”  Trump not only bungled, but exacerbated, the pandemic, and convention viewers are told he has been the “one leader” who “was right” about the virus and did an “incredible job.”

Inversions both train and test loyalty, the quality most valued by Trump.  Inversions, which make no sense, train the brain to reach its conclusions based on the authority of the source and one’s membership in the group.  Your capacity for empirical observation and independent judgment withers.  Faith in the party (or strongman, in this case) and loyalty become the only virtues.  And enthusiastic acceptance of the core inversions becomes the essential test of loyalty.   

On November 3, we will find out how many million Americans, looking at four fingers, will answer, “five.” 

The Platformless Party

There have been many historic turning points in American politics during the past four years, but few as astonishing as yesterday’s decision by the GOP to forego a platform.

Every four years since at least 1856 each party, meeting in convention, has published for the information of the American citizenry its position on the issues of the day.  The platform – in some countries it is called a “program” or “manifesto” – is a basic instrument common to all mature well-functioning democracies.   It states where the party stands, and the policies it intends to implement if elected.

But now it’s official.  The GOP has completed its transition from a traditional political party with ideology, ideas, policies and positions, to a populist movement built around a person.  The Republican convention yesterday officially resolved that the party’s agenda is whatever Donald Trump says it is from time to time. 

I actually admire the convention’s transparency.   It would be completely disingenuous to formulate, record and publish any agenda or policy positions that extend beyond the broadest of political platitudes (Make America Great, America First) because Trump would not in any way consider himself bound by any of it.   The GOP is telling us, with admirable frankness, that if we elect Trump the party’s policy or position on any particular issue will be whatever Trump decides makes him look best in the moment.   No ideology, principle, or policy coherence will prevail over the uninformed Tweeted impulses of the “stable genius.”  While the admission may be honest, it marks the end of democracy as we have practiced it in this country for two centuries.

We must treat every race, from U.S. Senator to local dog-catcher, as a referendum on this now-official position of the Republican party.

Today was even worse. Trump said:  "The only way they can take this election away from us is if it's a rigged election," a statement that precludes the possibility of the people choosing someone other than Trump as the next President. Autocratic authoritarianism is not a risk. It’s here.

The Nightmare Just Got Worse

Every public official who took an oath to defend the constitution should be considering today what actions are within his or her power to salvage the election of 2020 and, with it, American democracy. 

The President admitted on Thursday that he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots.  A major Trump donor (installed at the head of the USPS to replace an independent career employee) has orchestrated removal of critical high volume mail sorting machines.  The Post Office warned states considering mitigating COVID impacts through the use of mail-in ballots that they would face delays in delivery of ballots, making it impossible to know how many people actually voted or whether or when all the votes had been counted.   All this comes on top of a successful campaign by the President and Fox to turn the mechanics of voting into a partisan issue, with 76% of Republicans now accepting the Trumpist line on mail-in ballots and fraud.  None of this is hidden.  Larry Kudlow told CNBC that  “voting rights” are a “really liberal, left wish” and “not our game.”   Of course we knew this based on years of voter suppression efforts by the right.  Still, it is shocking to hear it said out loud.

If we have a COVID election without mail-in ballots, it will cause the election to fail.  If we have an election where mail-in ballots are used but not timely delivered by the post office, it will cause the election to fail.  If we are unable to conduct an election in which almost all the country has confidence, it will be the end of a 231 year record of democratic transfer of power (something we have long taken for granted, but which the rest of humanity knows is a precious gift, both hard to achieve and hard to maintain).

I call on all the living ex-Presidents, of both parties, to issue a joint statement calling for an end to efforts to undermine and delegitimize the election. 

I call on the House of Representatives and a broadly based group of leaders from every segment of civil society to call on the world’s premier independent international election monitors, the European Commission’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, to commence immediately to monitor the 2020 U.S. federal election and issue periodic reports.  

Trump’s ego demands that any election he does not win be delegitimized.  It will be satisfied by nothing less than the fulfillment of his prophecy of après moi, le déluge.  There is no damage to the country and its people that is too high a price to keep up appearances and feed his twin narratives of victimization and greatness.

With Trump, it is hard to untangle the consequences of his incompetence and his malevolence.   But at this point it doesn’t matter.  He has already vandalized the federal government and undermined most of the political norms that supported the success and durability of our political culture.   It seems he will not be satisfied unless the destruction of established institutions is complete. 

Cauldron of Crazy

If you really want to understand why America is now viewed by the rest of the planet as a pariah – its citizens denied the right to travel the world because of the incompetence of its government and toxicity of its culture – please watch this:

IMG_0407 from Andrew Colton on Vimeo.

Somehow, when the ingredients for this cauldron of crazy are fed to this woman by Fox, it is called journalism and sponsored by major companies such as Office Depot, Expedia, Bayer, ADT, Ford, and the like. But when regurgitated on social media and in forums such as the one in the video (Palm Beach County Commission), it is dismissed as fringe lunacy, for which the GOP and its media arm take no responsibility.

Although Trumpism is what precipitated the eruption of this toxic craziness into the core of our national life, it will not disappear with Trump’s presidency.

Although Disney, Papa Johns, and T-Mobil have withdrawn their advertising from Tucker Carlson, many other major companies remain as sponsors of Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham. It’s one thing to acquiesce to the free speech rights of these toxic voices, it’s quite another to fund them by the purchase of products and services from their advertisers.

If your mother were killed by the COVID resurgence in a place where the shut down was ended prematurely and masks were not required, would you patronize a company that sponsored those that spewed the nonsense that killed her? And under what moral code is it ok for the rest of us, who were lucky enough not to have loved ones killed by COVID, to patronize those same companies? Effective immediately, I am boycotting any company that still advertises on Fox.

I still have the concept of “negligent homicide” rattling around my brain from law school days:  the killing of another person through gross negligence, i.e., when a person’s death is caused by conduct that grossly deviates from “ordinary care.” That in turn often depends on whether the consequence of the negligent conduct was reasonably foreseeable (for example, the way it is foreseeable that you risk hurting or killing someone if you drive while intoxicated).  Every morning I read ample testimony that the relevant state and federal governments knew what was required to protect the people and chose not to do it (in many cases not merely due to negligence or “wishful thinking,” but for political reasons that render the conduct morally repugnant). Looking around at the current crisis in Texas, Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, observed: “All of this was predicted and is predictable.”

Nightmare

The principal lesson of the COVID pandemic is one of preparedness.   We knew that a pandemic would happen, how it would happen, and exactly what we needed to do to be prepared.  Our failure to do so resulted from the usual stew of human frailties: denial, wishful thinking, avarice and failure of leadership.

We now face another potentially devastating threat, which we must not again ignore until it is too late.  In 2016 Trump refused to say that he would accept the election results if he lost.  2020 will be no different.  Whenever he fails or loses, it is because the system is “rigged” against him.   And he is now, almost daily, laying the groundwork to contest this November’s results.  It centers around a groundless but powerful meme:  voting by mail produces massive fraud.   All experts agree it is untrue.  No matter.  With the narrative pushed relentlessly out to the base by Fox News, 76% of Republicans now say in polls that voting by mail leads to fraud. 

So what are we doing now to prepare for the risk that the 2020 election will result in chaos, violence, and even the end of America’s 223-year record of peaceful transfers of power?  With apologies for ruining your day, here is the nightmare scenario:

Assuming that election night returns show Trump losing, he angrily rejects this result, asserts (with no basis) massive fraud, claiming the margin of difference is due to millions of illegal immigrants and a democrat conspiracy revolving around absentee and mail-in ballots.  He refuses to concede and launches a blizzard of litigation.   With no wiser heads in the White House to stop him, in the next 24 hours, his tweets awaken every flavor of far right paranoia:  if the democrats are permitted to steal the election they will take your guns, ban your religion, end your freedom, and preside over a chaotic collapse of law and order.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.   Trump’s base takes to the streets, invades state houses, and threatens judges.   They are met by massive protests in opposition.  The streets erupt in violent chaos.  Trump militarizes the response, telling the country that only he can preserve law and order. 

Although many judges quickly resolve their cases, scores of red state judges require recounts, extend voting, and order other remedies that delay the ability of state officials to certify the results.  On December 14, when electors meet in each state, scores of litigations remain unresolved and some elector meetings are enjoined from proceeding.  In some swing states won by Biden, such as Michigan, a hyper-partisan GOP legislature simply “finds” that fraud has occurred, throws out the results from contested urban and minority precincts, and votes to certify the electors pledged to Trump.  On January 6, when the elector results are due in the Senate, enough state certifications are absent or contested to deny Biden 270 electoral votes.   The constitution gives Congress the power to count electoral votes and determine the result.  Outraged, the Democrat-controlled House determines that Biden has won.  The Senate, still controlled by the GOP, either determines that Trump is the winner or votes to delay deciding.   

The President’s term expires at noon on January 20 and, pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act, if the office becomes vacant and a new president has not been inaugurated, the Speaker of the House becomes acting president.  

As of January 19, the Supreme Court has issued a series of contradictory and inconclusive 5-4 rulings.  Other cases have yet to reach the Supreme Court.  Having allowed the violence to peak to levels that have terrified ordinary citizens, Trump has declared martial law, pledging to restore law and order.  The move has widespread support. 

That night, the President addresses the nation, this time “revealing” a vast conspiracy by the “deep state,” aided by the Chinese and other hostile governments, to subvert the constitution and deny him the office to which he was elected.   Attorney General Barr, standing at his side, is “gravely concerned” and has launched a full investigation.   Trump says he has taken an oath to defend the constitution and this is what he will do.  He notes that if all the still-contested state elector certifications break his way, he will have won the electoral vote.   Let the process work, he argues.   Moreover, it is a time of national crisis, and he will not abandon the nation to chaos and violence.    All eight members of the Joint Chiefs were ordered to stand behind him when giving this address.   Two agreed and stood at his side.  The other six refused and were fired.

The next day, in a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, is sworn in by Justice Ginsburg as acting president pursuant to the 1947 Presidential Succession Act.    Trump tweets from the White House that this is an act of treason and orders the Attorney General to arrest both women. 

Outlandish?  Unthinkable?  My argument is not that this grim scenario will happen, only that it is a real risk.  

The best way to prevent it?  That’s simple: an overwhelming popular vote for Biden, and democratic control of both houses of Congress.   It is the closeness of the popular vote margin that would provide the necessary cover for those inclined to enable Trump.  Without it, they won’t dare.   And if both houses of Congress are controlled by the opposition party starting January 3, then many legal and procedural avenues will be denied to the Trumpists. Many of us have indulged in the narrative that our votes mean nothing in a presidential election, the result being determined by a handful of swing voters in the swing states. But this time around, that is manifestly untrue. Every vote really does count.