You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, said a young Bob Dylan. Similarly, I don’t think a Ph.D in psychology is required to recognize that Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene are deeply disturbed, mentally ill individuals.
Even so, 27 mental health professionals published a book in 2017 warning Americans that Trump’s psychological condition presented a “clear and present danger” to the nation. This was before the lethal fiasco of Trump’s pandemic response and his incitement of deadly mob violence against our democracy on Jan. 6.
Beyond the clearly deranged Greene and the deluded lunatics who attacked the Capitol, there are throngs of registered Republicans who believe, or say they believe, an array of phantasmagorical conspiracy theories exalting Trump’s lies and demonizing Democrats.
In my opinion, the Trump cult stands as the most baneful example of what psychologists call shared psychotic disorder that America has experienced since the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
The answers, my friend, aren’t blowing in the wind, but disinformation has been blowing up the airwaves for decades — and indoctrinating millions of malleable American minds — since Rush Limbaugh got rich and famous trashing the common good and inciting poisonous partisan tribalism after the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated.
David Ninehouser
Ambridge