Joe or ruination

Who would have thought that our country’s continued existence would be decided in a battle between sanity and the mask of it? This refers to Hervey Cleckley’s classic study of psychop­athy, in which he describes psychopaths as imposters of humanity with destructive needs and with no conscience. Who would have thought that psychology – the soft science and deepest and murkiest quality of a person – would be the single crucible in which our future as a free people is forged? Nearly half our country – or from the Electoral College frame of reference, more than half our country – does not feel, recognize or apply the quality of heart in its idea of the nature of national leadership or in its view of the social contract. The dysfunctions of global anger, global hatred and projected pain are the eyes through which they see time and existence, their own and our country’s. The aborted emotional devel­opment of the psy­cho­path is also at play in the stunning childish immaturity we see in daily discourse, as if the Republican party were the avatar of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, the psychiatric diagnosis of congenitally angry, vindictive, miserable children. These people, citizens and govern­ment officials, are so ungrown that the president’s most puerile and ridiculous tweets and statements please and do not embarrass them; are so trapped in the damaged child’s mentality that cartoon conspiracy theories fill their heads like magical thinking; are so concrete and shallow that conceiving half the country as their enemy doesn’t strike them as absolutely insane.

One man whose psyche died in childhood, Trump, has released the "demons" – the pain – in millions of people, has legitimated their sickness that required therapy not the power to destroy democracy and institutions. We know with full certainty that pathol­ogy raised this man-child and formed every molecule of his nature. We are led by the equivalent of a creature bred and tortured to become a killing machine, as his thoughts and urges have killed thousands in a pandemic, have destroyed ally relationships, have sickened the economy, have befriended and colluded with murderers, have duped impressionable followers. We are led by disease, as other countries have been and are led by dictators who survived their birth in body only and who, in an ideal world, should spend their lives in prisons and psychiatric wards.

We need to see this treatable disease for what it is. We need to vote for Joe Biden, which is simply to say we must opt to stay alive as a free people, not as a psychopath’s victims.