In a healthy American society these events would be the cause of great concern.

[kpete]

Sick societies produce sick leaders. Donald Trump's presidency and its aftermath offer perhaps the clearest examples of that fact in recent history. Trumpism, the contemporary Republican Party and "conservative" movement in America seem like a distillation of the worst aspects of human nature in general and American society in particular.

*snip*

America now suffers from what social psychologists have described as a state of "malignant normality".

Psychologist John Gartner has explained this condition as emerging after "a malignantly narcissistic leader takes control of society and gradually changes reality for everyone else. So their crazy internal reality becomes enacted in the lived true external reality of that society. This is how a leader can come in and change the mores of their society."

*snip*

The Age of Trump has also further transformed America into a pathocracy. In a 2019 essay for Psychology Today, Steve Taylor explained this concept as developed by Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski, who spent his early life under Nazi occupation, closely followed by Soviet occupation. For Lobaczewski, "pathocracy" was "when individuals with personality disorders (particularly psychopathy) occupy positions of power." Pathological leaders, he argued, hate democracy, and when they attain power "do their utmost to dismantle or discredit democratic institutions, including the freedom and legitimacy of the press." That was what Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Viktor Orbán did in their respective nations, Taylor observes, and what Trump attempted to do in the United States

........

In a healthy American society these events would be the cause of great concern. But today's America is not such a place. As such, these "revelations" have mostly been ignored and then consigned to the memory hole by the guardians and gatekeepers of approved public discourse, who cling to corrupt standards of "balance" and "fairness."

MORE:
https://www.salon.com/2022/06/09/dances-for-the-nra-americas-emotional-health-is-critical-and-getting-worse/

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Chainfire]

2. We, as a nation, have been lied to so much by the right

that the lie, even the suspected or known lie, has gained equal value as truth; emotion has displaced rationality. Propaganda has corrupted a vast number of Americans. We are rotting from the inside and it is not something that has happened by accident, but has been very patiently sustained and expanded since at least the days of Raygun. There is a puppeteer at work, these things do not happen by chance.

If the events that begin tonight do not change our direction and momentum then our path back to a more just, rational, ethical and compassionate nation or nation will be lost, perhaps forever. We are living in historic times, all that remains is the answer as to who will be writing the history. If the big lie stands then we all fall.

[crickets]

3. K&R for visibility.