May we please stop stigmatizing mental health care in this country with threads in which DUers

[Ocelot II]

54. The question is whether a person who believes irrational ideas, things we call "crazy,"

must be mentally ill; otherwise why would they believe such things? There's no easy answer. Lately a lot of people who are (or were) otherwise sane, as that term is normally understood, have inexplicably fallen down the rabbit hole of Qanon and other conspiracy theories. Are those people mentally ill? In some cases, maybe. Mental illness is usually regarded as a psychological condition that significantly impairs a person's ability to manage their daily life. But some people are able to hold down jobs and maintain relationships while still believing or at least promulgating rank nonsense.

TFG's lawyers, for example, have mostly been able to function more or less normally as lawyers while making the most outrageous, absurd and utterly unbelievable arguments. Some probably don't actually believe their own bullshit; others have found themselves suspended or disbarred on account of presenting bullshit to courts. In that regard their lives have been impaired, but I don't think most of those lawyers would be considered mentally ill in the clinical sense (Lynn Wood might be an exception). I just finished a new biography of Rudy Giuliani, which was fascinating. Many people have wondered how he declined from a smart, competent (though assholish) prosecutor to a fanatical conspiracy theorist and election-denier. The author thinks the cause of his fall was moral, not psychological, although his heavy drinking might have been a factor. Basically, he posits that after Rudy was no longer the mayor of NY and later lost a presidential primary, he became so desperate for influence and relevance that he was willing to do and say whatever was necessary to keep riding TFG's coattails. But he's not mentally ill. He's bad, not mad.

On the other hand, there are certainly some people who have become right-wing conspiracy believers who are mentally ill in some respect - most probably would not qualify for an insanity defense, but they are disturbed enough that their ordinary lives - their jobs, their relationships - are negatively affected by their trips down the rabbit hole. These people are particularly susceptible to the stochastic terrorism of some GOP politicians. I do not know why some people are so easily influenced by conspiracy theories, but they are out there. But instead of stigmatizing people we need to focus on the madness of their beliefs and figure out how to counter them.