Presidential Derangement Syndrome –
A very real Threat to the American Republic
A bit of a
disclaimer is in order before we begin. I
have been a sporadic political activist for the last 15 years in the Republican
Party. I have only voted for a handful
of Democrats in my life and have voted third party on a couple occasions when I
was really unhappy with the candidate that my party has put forward. Generally I would consider myself to be what
most people would consider a very safe Republican voter or even a stalwart of
the Grand Old Party. I have been an arm
chair historian every since I wrote my first research paper as a summary of
World War Two in the 5th grade.
When I started college, I expected to become a professor of
history. After many sidetracks, I ended
up with a doctorate degree in Law. I
approach a lot of issues from a historical perspective. I am heavily influenced by the idea that
history repeats itself because we are foolish enough to refuse to learn its
lessons.
In watching and participating in
our political system on the grassroots level for almost my entire adult life
and viewing those events from a historical perspective, I am deeply troubled by
what I have been seeing over the last twelve years.
In 2003, Charles Krauthamer added a
new mental illness to our political lexicon, BDS or Bush Derangement Syndrome.[1] Dr. Krauthamer defined BDS as “the acute
onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the
presidency – nay – the very existence of George W. Bush.”[2] In 2008 Lee Speigle suggested a new version
of the illness, ODS or Obama Derangement Syndrome.[3] Let me suggest that these two ‘disorders’ are
representative of something very serious that might, if we are not extremely
careful, take long term root in our political system.
Presidential Derangement Syndrome
(PDS) is basically when an otherwise normal individual experiences an acute
onset of paranoia in reaction to the presidency of a specific individual. Individuals suffering from PDS will believe
the most vile rumors about the President in question and will disregard any
objective information that conflicts with the vile rumors. For example, according to a Harris Poll
conducted in March 2010, about 25% of Americans believed that President Obama
was not born in the United States and was thus not eligible to be President of
these United States.[4] Likewise, according to a 2006 University of
Ohio poll, slightly more than one half of Democrats believed that it was either
very or somewhat likely that President Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.[5]
There are very valid reasons for disagreeing with and opposing the policies of both men. However, to completely assume the worst about the lawfully elected President[6], and to ignore or dismiss any objective evidence to the contrary is irrational at best. At worst it alls into question the validity of our belief in republicanism.[7]
If PDS is apparent only in a few political nut jobs then it is merely the sad effect of “looserism”[8] and need not concern us any further. When half of a major party or a quarter of our entire population believe some vile rumor about our President then we have a much more serious problem on our hands.
There are very valid reasons for disagreeing with and opposing the policies of both men. However, to completely assume the worst about the lawfully elected President[6], and to ignore or dismiss any objective evidence to the contrary is irrational at best. At worst it alls into question the validity of our belief in republicanism.[7]
If PDS is apparent only in a few political nut jobs then it is merely the sad effect of “looserism”[8] and need not concern us any further. When half of a major party or a quarter of our entire population believe some vile rumor about our President then we have a much more serious problem on our hands.
We humans
have always had political and cultural disagreements, probably since we first
had to divide those early bands of stone age hunter/gatherer clans into smaller
bands to enable everyone to find enough food.[9]
Our recorded history is full of ethnic
cleansings and outright genocide against other clans or tribes. This conflict is probably as deeply rooted in
human nature as is the need to eat, sleep, and procreate.
The tremendous
achievement of Western Civilization, and indeed what one of the most important things
that makes the United States
such an exceptional nation is that we have set up a process for resolving these
political conflicts in a peaceful manner.
The United States
is the first truly multi-ethnic nation-state to have achieved this. While there are democracies and republics
that were instrumental in developing the ideas that we put into practice, one
must keep in mind a few historical facts.
The Athenian Democracy lasted only 40 years before it reverted to
dictatorship. The Roman Republic Latin
America have had very turbulent histories.
Our
exceptional achievement of peacefully settling our political disputes is
seriously threatened when we stop believing in the process that makes peaceful
settlement of those disputes possible.
We agree that if we loose this election we will have another in a fixed
time according to fixed rules.
Presidential Derangement Syndrome, when present in a wide section of the
general population, calls into question whether we will continue to believe in
that system that has served us for the last 220+ years. And I, as a historian and as a person who
loves my country, am truly worried about our future.
If we stop
believing in the process, and the falling confidence we have in our national
Congress as well as the spread of PDS both point to that outcome, then we are
only one major crisis from deciding, as the Athenians and the Romans did, to
junk the whole self-government thing and fall back to a more arbitrary form of
government. This crisis could be
something like the foreseeable failure of our social safety net or the eventual
rise of another superpower with sufficient power in the world to force us to
pay off our rapidly expanding debt.
I do not believe that either of
these events will happen in the next twenty years but just because the event is
not imminent, it does not mean that we should not take steps to make sure it
does not happen. Is that not the point
of all the concern over climate change?
To try and prevent a possible future that limited available data is
suggesting as a possibility but not a certainty? Is that not why we buy life insurance?
I would prefer to believe that it
could not happen here but as I said at the start of this post, history has an
extremely bad history of repeating itself because we don’t listen.
[1]
Krauthamer, Charles. Delusional Dean , Wash.
[2] Id.
[3] Speigel,
Lee. Obama Derangement Syndrome, ABC News Political Punch, Nov. 10, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-derangeme/
[4] Harris
Interactive. “Wingnuts” and President
Obama. March 24, 2010. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/223/Default.aspx
[5] Smith, Ben. More
than half of Democrats believe Bush knew.” Politico, April 22, 2011. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/More_than_half_of_Democrats_believed_Bush_knew.html
[6] To
assume that President Obama holds the office under fraudulent circumstances or
that President Bush was complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 of our fellow
citizens.
[7]
Republicanism is the idea that human beings, through elected representatives,
govern their own affairs without the need to have a divinely appointed king or
other strong individual run the government.
This is as contrasted with Democracy where all competent adults gather
and collectively make decisions via a town hall debate or other direct voting
process.
[8] Horowitz,
David. Op-Ed. Get over Obama Derangement
Syndrome. Politico, Dec. 8,
2008. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16306.html
[9] Maybe
even longer given what we are learning about Chimpanzee and their ability to
wage a proto form of warfare. See
Viegas, Jennifer. Chimps Engage in ‘War’
for Turf. Discovery News, Jun 21,
2010. http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimp-war-behavior.html.
I noticed this was written on November 7th; shortly after the election. I enjoyed reading your thoughts and wanted to add a couple of my own ...when referring to the large numbers of people who question the official version of who Obama is and where he came from you do so under the umbrella of PDS and then go on to suggest that perhaps these beliefs call into question our faith in republicanism. Have you considered the very real possibility that it is our belief and faith in republicanism that has ignited our concerns over Obama's mysterious past: his unwillingness to proffer a proper and unedited birth certificate, the millions he has spent to keep all evidence of his past sealed under lock and key, the large gaps and out and out lies regarding his personal history, and the non existent vetting of this man by the 4th estate? Is their any better evidence in our faith in republicanism than our willingness to question the official dictum we are fed from sources owned and controlled by people and corporations with divided loyalties? Perhaps the “much more serious problems we have on our hands aren’t what many of us believe but why we believe them. Perhaps when 140% of a precinct turn out to vote and when 100% of that precinct vote for the same candidate the problem at hand isn’t one of ‘looserism’ or the collective mindset of only ‘political nutjobs’ …sometimes where there is smoke there is also fire.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of the fall of Rome and brag that the USA is the first example of a multi ethnic nation to achieve this. I wonder if the Romans made similar boasts just as Rome was starting to fall? Does anyone still think that multiculturalism has been anything but a colossal failure everywhere it’s been tried? Shouldn’t we have learned at least that much from knowing why Rome fell: a multi ethnic populations inability to distill itself into a ‘Nation’…’the dole’ …’excessive taxation’, ‘moral bankruptcy’, ‘corrupt politicians’ and a weak military. Vattell (in the Law of Nations) defines a nation as:
“Nations or states are bodies politic, societies of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by the joint efforts of their combined strength.
Such a society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes resolutions in common; thus becoming a moral person, who possesses an understanding and a will peculiar to herself, and is susceptible of "obligations" and "rights."
Is it really possible to be a “Nation” with a population made up of results of the failed experiment called multiculturalism? A population where the world’s poor and uneducated continue to demand more and more of our resources and are becoming a larger and larger segment of our population. How do we get back to Vattells idea of what a Nation is?
Sorry out of time to continue this thought...later CJ
CJ,
ReplyDeleteCertainly where there is smoke there is the possibility of fire. However when people leap to the interpretation of facts that conform to their biases and ignore alternative (and more plausible) explanations, I question their ability to handle the responsibility of self-government. Republicanism is the process of selecting trustees to do the people's business; and then voting them out if they don't tend to it properly. It is not the people taking to the streets in protest over half formed rumors and political spin.
Questioning the official line is certainly part of a health check on government. When it goes from questioning to believing the worst possible interpretation w/o even basic fact checking then it slides from republicanism to democracy. For example, 140% turn out of registered voters in an urban precinct should not come as a surprise given the high levels of non-registration and moving from apartment to apartment that occurs in an urban setting. Add in the sheer number of people who voted for the first time in 2008 and probably moved to a new apartment by 2012 and you have a significant number of people who would be casting provisional ballots, esp. if they didn’t bother to register on time (an argument for another time). Our voter registration system is predicated on an agrarian life style or at most a post WW2 industrial model where people would secure a residence and stay there most of their adult lives. The living in several apartments in the same city over the course of a few years, which is not uncommon, esp. among the poor, throws our whole voter registration system into a mess. What was not reported in those stories was the number of provisional ballots. I don’t know if there were only 1 provisional ballot or if 75% of the ballots cast in those precincts were provisional and absent that information it is reckless and democratic to run with the idea that some form of voter fraud has occurred.
Yes, smoke can indicate fire, but mists of word games spun by political hacks are not smoke. For a republic to thrive, the voters must possess the ability to differentiate between the two.
I have quite a bit more but apparently this blogging program limits the size of comments so I'll have to leave it at that for now.