The word “insanity” is so often followed by “defense.” But these are far from normal times. And while much attention has legitimately been focused on “Living with COVID-19 because it’s not so bad,” and “Only they get monkey pox, not us,” it’s clear to me that another, equally virulent virus has been relentlessly spreading across the land. And like the best two-way players in the National Basketball Association, insanity is playing offense as well as defense.
I’m talking about Socially Acceptable Infectious Insanity (SAII-22). It’s a diabolical virus with the unique capacity to impede the very recognition of its presence, with the uncanny ability to disguise its severe symptoms until it’s way too late—a slow but inevitably increasing haze of stupidity merging into madness. The virus enables once sensible people to no longer detect hypocrisy, downright lies, and a variety of cons and scams. That’s why sufferers like Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham and pretty much all the Republican voters of Wyoming seem blissfully unaware of the contagion.
Some of the first clinicians to acknowledge the earliest cases of SAII-22 were quickly frustrated by the utter refusal of their patients to accept that they were sick. In fact, patients immediately turned—some even violently—on those who even suggested there was something called Socially Acceptable Infectious Insanity in the first place, let alone that they might be afflicted by and suffering from the new SAII-22 variant.
I’ve read of one highly experienced doctor who, when taking blood pressure, had one of his longtime patients suddenly shouting at him that Joe Biden was a Marxist puppet being remotely controlled by the Cubans, then by the Chinese, and maybe even the Ukrainians. The doctor very softly suggested that given Biden’s political history, he seemed much more likely to be a centrist, probably a middle of the road Democrat. The guy started sputtering, “You’re one of them … I’m betting the Woke Police have gotten to you,” then hurriedly buttoned up his shirt and stormed out of the office. A few days later the patient had complained to the American Medical Association, urging they take away the doctor’s license.
When the doctor suggested to several of his other patients that their sudden surges of out-of-control anger might be early signs of SAII-22, they laughed and assured him that while they were “as sharp as a tack” or “at the very top of their game,” it was “the others”—including an odd mix of brothers and sisters-in-law, their pro-choice left-wing neighbors, some of their FedEx and UPS drivers, and even that woman who delivers the mail—it was those others who were clearly insane.
But it was important that the doctor understood that they were only the little fish, the real threat came from all those who stole the last election—and those who wouldn’t acknowledge it was stolen. The worst were Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney, Barack Hussein Obama, the Capitol Police, the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and now the I.R.S.—and, of course, every other card-carrying Member of The Deep State.
Believe me, you don’t need to tell me, because I know very well that I’m in the minority here. You’re probably not going to see any of your usual TV medical experts—CNN’s Dr. Gupta or MSNBC’s Dr. Patel, for example—even acknowledge the growing threat to the public from SAII-22. And they probably won’t refer to the latest analysis that recent Emergency Room intake data suggests there might be a link to recent cases of SAII-22 with prolonged viewing of FOX News.
Not surprising, given the highly-charged political atmosphere surrounding the upcoming midterm elections, I suspect even institutions like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)—especially after the failures with Covid—aren’t anxious to address this most recent seemingly uncontrolled virus.
Now let me try to clarify some of the basic terms. As for insanity in general, well, a lot of smart people have pointed out how hard it is to distinguish between insanity and genius or, in far less grandiose terms, the difference between insanity and reality. In “Beyond Good and Evil,” anticipating SAII-22, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
The rule is, I must admit, remarkably effective. How else can you explain Trump attorney Sydney Powell’s ability to convince millions of Americans that the 2020 election was stolen and that she, in fact, knows exactly who stole it and how they pulled it off? And for a modest contribution, she’ll be glad to tell you, as the Daily Beast reports: “On Thursday, Powell declared that she had found the real villains behind Trump’s election defeat: billionaire [George] Soros and deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. In Powell’s telling, Chavez had been pulling the strings on American voting software this whole time.
“‘The Dominion Voting Systems, the Smartmatic technology software, and the software that goes in other computerized voting systems here as well, not just Dominion, were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez,’ Powell declared.”
If you’ve spent months chanting: “Lock Her Up!” and “Build The Wall!”, and you weren’t the least bit troubled when Donald Trump announced he trusted Russian despot Vladimir Putin more than our C.I.A. and truly believed that Hillary Clinton was the she-devil, well it’s certainly not difficult to understand how Big Lie believers might have gone the way that science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick had imagined: “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
Arizona turns out to be a testament to the ability of the SAII-22 virus to rapidly move from person to person—to infiltrate so many people in the highest level of the state government. You might remember how Arizona Governor Ducey undid any requirement for masking: “Citing expanded vaccine distribution and declining case numbers, Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday lifted COVID-19 restrictions on Arizona businesses and events and prohibited, in most cases, the enforcement of local mask mandates. In a surprise announcement, the Republican leader said events drawing more than 50 people, such as youth sports tournaments and concerts, would no longer require governmental approval.” (Emphasis added.)
Ducey went out of his way to ensure there were no barriers to infection: “And he stripped cities and counties of their power to enforce mask mandates, except in government buildings or on public transportation.” Who knew the safest place to be in Arizona was on a public bus?
Then, in a testament to the successful infiltration of SAII-22, Arizona Senate Republicans, miserably unhappy that Joe Biden had beaten Donald Trump, hired the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas to conduct an audit of every Arizona vote. As the Brennan Center reveals, the Ninjas, who had no prior experience with this kind of election oversight, quickly signed a contract for $150,000 and began “The Great American Hunt for Bamboo-Laced Ballots in the 2020 Election.”
The Arizona Republic adds some additional information about the Ninjas: “Within days of being tapped by the Arizona Senate to lead its partisan election review, Cyber Ninjas’ CEO Doug Logan was holed up in a Detroit-area hotel room illegally taking apart voting machines, Michigan authorities say.
“Logan, who had little or no election experience, worked with a group who ‘gained unauthorized access and compromised tabulators’ from multiple Michigan counties in a plot to prove voter fraud, according to newly released records from the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. Authorities say Logan was part of a conspiracy, along with eight other prominent figures, in the movement to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Now you might imagine that the likelihood the Ninjas were corrupt would have raised some red flags or even that their mission seemed highly suspect. But no! Not if you were infected with SAII-22. The UK Guardian explains what the Ninjas were looking for: “Arizona Republicans are examining whether there is bamboo fiber in ballots that were used in the 2020 election, an activist assisting with the ongoing audit of the ballots told reporters this week. The latest claim underscores how rightwing conspiracy theories continue to fuel doubt about the results of the results.
“‘There’s accusation that 40,000 ballots were flown in to Arizona and it was stuffed into the box and it came from the south-east part of the world, Asia, and what they’re doing is to find out whether there’s bamboo in the paper,’ John Brakey, a longtime election audit advocate, told reporters …”
The Arizona Central newspaper decided to make a public records request for all communications and financial documents regarding the work the Ninjas were doing for the Arizona Senate. The Associated Press reported that when the Ninjas failed to release their records, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said he would impose a $50,000 fine against Cyber Ninjas every day until it hands over documents related to the so-called audit.
Supporting that determination, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled the papers did indeed belong to the public and needed to be released. Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Central surmised that Ninja CEO Doug Logan might not want those papers to be released, because “they’re afraid the records will show just how closely Logan was working with Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, who promised ‘irrefutable evidence of fraud.’ And with former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who floated fantastical conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen.”
When the Ninjas finally released their findings, the Maricopa County Elections Department issued a scathing rebuttal detailing how the Ninjas got it wrong: “nearly every finding included faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions, and a lack of understanding of federal and state election laws …
- “22 were misleading. The claims lead the reader to assume a conclusion that is not supported by the evidence.
- “41 were inaccurate. The claims include flawed or misstated analysis.
- “13 were false. The claims are demonstrably false and can be proven false using materials provided to the Senate.”
Sadly, Arizona citizens had wasted lots of time and money. As the Arizona Republic reports: “In addition to its $150,000 contract with the Senate, Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors got millions more from nonprofits set up by Trump allies and prominent figures in the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement …
“A handful of nonprofits whose leaders have said widespread voter fraud led to President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election have poured more than $5.6 million into the Arizona election audit so far, according to the company running the audit …
“Founders also include groups associated with Trump attorney Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser … Here’s the list released by Cyber Ninjas accounting for the donations.
- “Byrne’s The America Project — $3,250,000.
- “Flynn’s America’s Future — $976,514.43.
- “Bobb’s Voices and Votes — $605,000.
- “Powell’s Defending The Republic — $550,000.
- “Michigan attorney Matthew DePerno’s LDFFTAR/EIFFTAR — $280,000.”
While the Ninjas raked in money from the “Stop The Steal” faithful, by the time they settled up for the $50,000-a-day fine they had incurred by not releasing their documents, the tab had reached $5 million. And not surprisingly, according to NBC News, their well-publicized failure to find the tell-tale bamboo propelled them into bankruptcy: “‘Cyber Ninjas is shutting down. All employees have been let go,’ Rod Thomson, the company’s representative, said in a text message Thursday evening. The Florida-based company, founded in 2013, has less than a dozen employees, according to its LinkedIn page.”
Acknowledging their closure, the Ninjas patted themselves on the back: “After over eight years of providing world class application security services, Cyber Ninjas has gone out-of-business and has closed its doors effective January 1, 2022. During this time period we not only were able to help companies and organizations improve their security posture, but were also able to feed people in Haiti, deliver Christmas presents to Haiti children, support missions in the U.S. and abroad, train the next generation of Cyber Security professionals with the US Cyber Challenge; [sic] and of course, complete the most comprehensive election audit in history, in one of the most difficult political climates our country has ever experienced. Serving others in this manner was our honor.”
But like Sydney Powell, the Ninjas, even as they departed the fray, asked for both spiritual and financial help: “If you believe in what we’ve accomplished and would like to help; [sic] I’d ask that you first start by committing to pray every day in this way. Listen to where the Lord would have you involved with action, and get stuff done. If He puts on your heart to help financially, I ask that you consider helping pay the debts Cyber Ninjas was not able to cover …”
Bear in mind that the American Heritage Dictionary defined insanity before any of us even could imagine the great Bamboo Hunt of 2021:
- “Severe mental illness or derangement. Not used in psychiatric diagnosis.
- “Law: a. Unsoundness of mind sufficient to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or sufficient to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.
- “Incapacity to form the criminal intent necessary for legal responsibility, as when a mental disorder prevents a person from knowing the difference between right and wrong.
- “Incapacity because of a mental disorder to participate adequately as a defendant in criminal proceedings or to understand the imposition of a criminal punishment, particularly the death penalty.
- “Extreme foolishness or irrationality.”
To be clear, I’m not suggesting the Bamboo Hunters or the Republican members of the Arizona Senate should be relocated to the looney bin. Especially when we consider Richard Letteri’s illuminating history for Psychology Today: “The insanity defense as a legal concept was born in England, in 1843. A man named Daniel M’Naghten attempted to assassinate the British Prime Minister who he believed was conspiring against him. Due to his psychosis, the court acquitted him and thus established the Mr. M’Naghten Rule. It requires that a defendant is to be found not guilty of an offense if, at the time it occurred, his mental disorder was so grave as to (1) interfere with his ability to know or understand the nature or quality of his criminal behavior, and (2) to have compromised the defendant’s ability to know or understand the legal or moral wrongfulness of his behavior. This two-pronged rule became the legal standard for an insanity defense in the United States as well.”
It seems quite clear to me that a remarkable number of Americans today have lost the capacity to appreciate that their behavior has crossed the clear line over into “moral wrongfulness.” How else could members of a mob in one moment with great righteousness declare their fervent support for the men in blue and, in the next moment, viciously attack the Capitol Police with sharpened American flagpoles?
These days we’re confronted with the mind-boggling, upside-down logic of Trump supporters attacking members of the F.B.I. for righteously seizing critical national security documents from the unsecured property of the former president, who illegally removed them from their secure storage in the White House. So diabolical is SAII-22 that demonstrators gather in front of the gates of Mar-a-Lago to chastise the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation carrying signs that say “Law and Order.” And courtesy of Socially Acceptable Infectious Insanity, they are completely unaware that it is precisely the men and women of these organizations who are acting to preserve that very Law and Order.
Meanwhile, every excuse and justification offered by the Trump team has been replaced by another. The New York Times highlighted some of them: “In the days following the search, Mr. Trump’s allies focused attention on the F.B.I.’s search warrant for his home at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Those warrants typically remain under seal unless charges are filed, but many of his supporters suggested that the F.B.I. was not releasing it because the search was politically motivated.
“Mr. Trump was free to release the warrant at any time. Instead, he repeatedly linked the White House to the search, suggesting that President Biden or other Democrats knew about it. ‘Biden knew all about this,’ he wrote on Aug. 9. He provided no evidence.”
A day later, Wednesday August 10, 2022, “Mr. Trump said his lawyers and others at Mar-a-Lago were not permitted to watch the search, and suggested the lack of oversight could have allowed the F.B.I. to plant evidence. He wrote on Truth Social that agents did not want witnesses ‘to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, “planting.”‘”
And yet it turns out Trump and his family were watching the entire search streaming on the bank of surveillance cameras he had installed throughout the facility. They could have easily presented videotaped evidence of planting if it existed.
“Mr. Trump also targeted former President Barack Obama, falsely claiming that his predecessor took more than 30 million documents to Chicago after he left the White House. In a later post, Mr. Trump increased the figure to 33 million documents. The National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, responded in a statement, saying that ‘NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA.’”
On Thursday August 11, 2022, according to the New York Times, Trump claimed the search itself was unnecessary: “After reports showed the F.B.I. sought documents related to ‘special access programs,’ a term reserved for extremely sensitive operations and closely held technologies, Mr. Trump said the F.B.I. could have asked for documents without a search.
“He posted on Truth Social that the F.B.I. had already asked him to install an additional padlock in an area where secure documents were kept.
“‘My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established,’ he wrote on Aug. 11. ‘The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it.’”
Friday, August 12, 2022, “After the F.B.I. log of seized documents shows some marked classified, Trump says, without evidence, that the documents were already declassified.
“After the warrant was released by a Florida court, an accompanying log showed that 11 sets of classified documents were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. The warrant also showed that the investigation was related to violations of the Espionage Act.”
The problem for ex-President Trump is that some provisions of the Espionage Act still apply to documents that have been declassified. It’s not about the classification but whether or not the documents are secret and sensitive and contain information vital to our national security.
It turns out, in fact, that the Justice Department and the National Archive had been trying for many months to retrieve the documents. And that when Trump still refused to comply, they issued a subpoena. It was only as a last resort that the Department of Justice went to a judge and was granted a search warrant to enter Mar-a-Lago and retrieve the documents.
Nevertheless, the Trump team has continued to lie. And, because they have believed these lies, his followers have turned their anger towards the F.B.I.
Finally, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) decided to tell its side of the story by releasing a copy of a letter they had previously sent to Trump’s attorney on May 10, 2022:
“As you are no doubt aware, NARA had ongoing communications with the former President’s representatives throughout 2021 about what appeared to be missing Presidential records, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes of records to NARA in January 2022. In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials. NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them. On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office—affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum—formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes …
“As the Department of Justice’s National Security Division explained to you on April 29, 2022: ‘There are important national security interests in the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community getting access to these materials. According to NARA, among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages. Some include the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials. Access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps. Accordingly, we are seeking immediate access to these materials so as to facilitate the necessary assessments that need to be conducted within the Executive Branch.’” (Emphasis added.)
The whole notion that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. sprung a completely unnecessary and gratuitous “raid” on the former President is absolutely ridiculous—up to and including the latest excuse put forth by supporters that former President Trump required these documents to write his memoir.
In case anybody doesn’t really understand what’s at stake, the New York Times recently informed us that the more than 100 documents that the National Archivist had referred to only included what they had gotten before the search warrant. And that despite what the Trump team had said, and what the Trump attorney had sworn to, was off by a very large margin. The problem was far more extensive, potentially much more dangerous:
The Times’ August 22, 2022 headline announced, “Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago.” And we learned that the National Archives were incredibly concerned by the reality that the documents they had previously retrieved had come from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. and that investigators had learned from multiple sources that ex-President Trump had personally gone through the boxes before they turned over that first batch. The Times writes: “The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.”
Given the fact that the Trump team has repeatedly lied and tried to obstruct the return of these documents, it’s no wonder that the D.O.J. has just asked for additional surveillance video.
Everything about the Trump Faithful’s response to the issue of the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago is a clear indication of the power of SAII-22 to infect the mental capacity of millions. Now I imagine that some smart epidemiologists or psychotherapists might quibble with my suggestion that SAII-22 is actually a virus. Not a syndrome. Or a condition.
Well, to make up for my significant lack of expertise, I conducted some preliminary research. I started with Merriam-Webster’s very technical definition: “any of a large group of submicroscopic infectious agents that are usually regarded as nonliving extremely complex molecules, that typically contain a protein coat surrounding an RNA or DNA core of genetic material but no semipermeable membrane, that are capable of growth and multiplication only in living cells, and that cause various important diseases in humans, animals, and plants.”
Between you and me, that set me back for a day or two. And made it quite clear to me that I needed to acknowledge that I am completely without medical credentials. I even failed advanced biology in college and that I have never observed an RNA or, for that matter, a DNA core of genetic material. I don’t even have a microscope, let alone a sub-microscope. Which is why I gravitated to the simpler definition I found on nature.com: “A virus is an infectious agent that can only replicate within a host organism. Viruses can infect a variety of living organisms, including bacteria, plants, and animals. Viruses are so small that a microscope is necessary to visualize them, and they have a very simple structure.”
So let me emphasize. Please do not rely on anything you read here to attempt a self-diagnosis. If you suspect you might have been exposed to SAII-22 at a Trump rally or a clandestine meeting of the Proud Boys or Girls, or maybe because you’ve been watching too much Tucker Carlson, make an appointment to see a professional.
The thing about SAII-22 is that even if some of us aren’t able to observe the virus itself, or isolate and analyze its intricate structure, its effect on people is readily apparent. Time after time in human history, insanity has contaminated our communities, wreaking havoc, banishing reason, threatening every attempt to expand civilized behavior.
Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say about the Middle Ages’ version of today’s SAII-22: “dancing plague of 1518, event in which hundreds of citizens of Strasbourg … danced uncontrollably and apparently unwillingly for days on end; the mania lasted for about two months before ending as mysteriously as it began.
“In July 1518, a woman whose name was given as Frau (Mrs.) Troffea (or Trauffea) stepped into the street and began dancing. She seemed unable to stop, and she kept dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion. After resting, she resumed the compulsive frenzied activity. She continued this way for days, and within a week more than 30 other people were similarly afflicted. They kept going long past the point of injury. City authorities were alarmed by the ever-increasing number of dancers. The civic and religious leaders theorized that more dancing was the solution, and so they arranged for guildhalls for the dancers to gather in, musicians to accompany the dancing, and professional dancers to help the afflicted to continue dancing. This only exacerbated the contagion, and as many as 400 people were eventually consumed by the dancing compulsion. A number of them died from their exertions. In early September the mania began to abate.”
What I wonder is the psychological distance between dancing oneself to death in the Middle Ages and the willingness to believe that Jews and Gypsies and Homosexuals are keeping the German nation from greatness and that to achieve Make Germany Great Again, it is necessary to annihilate them.
In a 2001 article entitled “CIA documents hints at Hitler’s Insanity,” the Chicago Tribune notes: “A CIA file on Adolf Hitler was made public Friday, including a report that described the Nazi leader as a ‘border case between genius and insanity’ and predicted that Hitler could become the ‘craziest criminal the world ever knew.’
“The CIA file on Hitler was released along with those of 19 other wartime figures, including Josef Mengele, the sadistic doctor at the Auschwitz death camp; Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the extermination of Europe’s Jews; and Heinrich Mueller, the feared Gestapo chief. Overall, historians who have studied the records said Friday that the declassification of 10,000 pages of documents from the CIA’s files provides few revelations to change what is known about the Nazi era.”
Wikipedia tells us Hitler was never diagnosed as mentally ill. And yet, we’ve been struggling for decades to fully comprehend the how and why of Hitler, of his ability to take the German people with him on his descent into madness.
These issues pose great problems for us. Wikipedia notes: “Even more concerning is the warning issued by some authors that pathologizing Hitler would inevitably mean discharging him of at least some responsibility for his actions. Others fear that by pathologizing or demonizing Hitler, all the blame for crimes of Nazi Germany could be placed entirely on him, whilst the populace and those in positions of power who enabled Hitler to rule would consequently be relieved from responsibility. Famed is Hannah Arendt’s coinage of the phrase the ‘banality of evil’; in 1963, she stated that for a Nazi perpetrator as Adolf Eichmann, mental normality and the ability to commit mass murder were not mutually exclusive.” (Emphasis added.)
Can you even remember when people could disagree about politics while respecting one another? When a Supreme Court of nine men, voted 7-2 to strike down a Texas law which banned abortion, making abortion legal throughout the nation, affirming that the right to abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.
Today, once reasonable people are transformed before our very eyes. I can remember a time when I found myself voting for local Republicans Peter Webber and Jane Swift for the Massachusetts State Senate. There was a time when there were actually some reasonable Republicans. Even as recently as 2016, there were some Republicans, even candidates, who recognized the danger of a Trump presidency. Sadly, they have all pretty much recanted, working to forget they were once disloyal.
Meanwhile, the infected seem to be everywhere. The book-banners, the vax deniers, the big liars. USA Today
points out that “The American Library Association (ALA) keeps track of challenges and bans across the country, and the most recent data is alarming. In 2021, the ALA recorded 729 book challenges targeting 1,597 titles. That’s more than double 2020’s figures and the highest number since the organization began recording data in 2000.”
Almost thirty years ago, Myrna Oliver wrote about playwright Eugene Ionesco and his play “Rhinoceros” for the Los Angeles Times:
“‘I first thought of the rhinoceros image during the war (World War II), as I watched Romanian statesmen and politicians and later French intellectuals accommodate themselves to Hitler’s way of thinking,’ Ionesco said in a 1985 interview. ‘They might say something like, “Well, of course the Nazis are terrible, terrible people, but you know, you must credit them with their good points” … ‘And you wanted to say to them: “But don’t you see, if you start granting them a good point here, a good point there, eventually you will concede everything to them.” Which is exactly what happened. But they looked upon you as an alarmist, then a nuisance, finally an enemy to be run down. They looked like they wanted to lower their heads and charge’ …
“‘The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist,’ he said in a 1983 discussion of ‘Rhinoceros’ and other works based on his World War II observations. ‘We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon.'”
One of the lessons of Trump’s theft of top secret documents and the overwhelming patience of the National Archives, the Department of Justice, and the F.B.I is that if you start granting them a good point here, a good point there, eventually you will concede everything to them. And they will treat patience as weakness. And no matter how politely you demand justice, you will be their enemy.
How crazy are they to imagine that all they have to do is to keep kids from reading and learning and talking about slavery, or the Holocaust, or our internment of Japanese-Americans, and they’ll somehow all feel better, or that by forcing women to give birth to the babies of their rapists, they will return virtue to the land?
Ionesco knew it was madness. I call it Socially Acceptable Infectious Insanity.
