Does America need a shrink? Has American behaviour, certainly regarding the November presidential election, become so irrational and inexplicable that clinical help, if it were available, is urgently needed?
Of course, American irrationality cannot compare with Iran’s Mullahs and Afghanistan’s Taliban regarding women, a gross perversion of Islam. And the irrationality of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan was national insanity on a global level that killed millions and produced the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust.
How highly cultured and sophisticated societies of Germany and Japan permitted and succumbed to the rise of Hitler and absolute obedience to a godly emperor that legitimised national suicide in defence of the realm should never be forgotten. Hannah Arendt explained Nazi Germany in terms of the “banality of evil” that turned ordinary people into monsters committing the most grotesque crimes against humanity. The Japanese psyche to die for the emperor was not dissimilar to the Middle Ages crusades that claimed the lives of untold Christians and Muslims in pursuit of glorifying religion. Indeed that death cult persists in radicalized Islam.
It is absurd to believe that American irrationality approaches those levels of madness. However, be careful. When one candidate can invent the most outrageous lies of legal residents {use of the correct term aliens creates the image of extraterrestrial beings} dining on pet cats, dogs and geese and having the lie reinforced by his many acolytes as truth could presage the shape of things to come. January 6th was no accident. And presidential involvement was heatedly and erroneously denied. Consider, as in the case of Hitler, how the big lies became actionable. Then, powerful forces were responsible. The Kaiser’s Germany had been exterminated. Germany was not just a defeated power. It was crushed.
American irrationality cannot compare with Iran’s Mullahs and Afghanistan’s Taliban regarding women
The terms of the Versailles Treaty were unduly and purposefully harsh. Reparations; failure to provide reconstruction aid; and restrictions to deprive Germany of a standing military set in place the elements that would elevate Hitler to Fuhrer and within two decades lead to an even more deadly and destructive world war. However, the allies were bent on revenge. And the “war to end all wars” had a further disastrous consequence: the formation of the USSR.
By comparison, pet cannibalism is less than trivial with several caveats. Blind loyalty to the leader by accepting and exaggerating the most preposterous of lies to demonstrate fealty is an ominous condition especially when no political limits or guard rails to limit autocratic behaviour seem to be in place. The Supreme Court decision granting presidential immunity to official acts raises the most sinister of implications for misuse especially when an unprecedented level of animosity and hatred politically divides America. If a national shrink did exist, these symptoms of impending danger would sound defeating alarms from coast to coast. Donald Trump boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in daylight and be absolved of committing a crime. There is no guarantee that future presidents could not be infected with similar bouts of megalomania These conditions of political ill-health will not automatically disappear in 2024 or beyond.
As a thought experiment suppose Harris wins. She has far-left supporters that in some ways mirror Trump’s extreme MAGA wing. With no or few constitutional limits to executive power, further, suppose Trump challenges the vote. One new tactic is to disqualify state electors so that the number of Electoral College votes to win will be less than 270 which could be to Trump’s advantage. And disqualification could come from a state voting for Harris.
In these circumstances, what are the inducements for Team Harris to fight fairly? None. And if Harris were to take office on January 20th, 2025, she could argue that Trump was a threat to national security. One option was to ensure Trump never can hold public office.
With two federal cases still pending against Trump over January 6th and classified materials and the Georgia state trial over interfering with the election results, Harris could expedite those proceedings. Or she could order her Attorney General to expedite or file new charges. Obtaining a guilty verdict or verdicts could follow. Violence and riots on a national level, far worse than January 6th or after George Floyd died in 2020, could be provoked by Trumpian zealots or even Trump. No national shrink exists. And no shrink could reverse these forces. Dining on cats and dogs is not Hitlerian in magnitude But the trajectory is not good. So Americans, please wake up.
The writer is a senior advisor at Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and a published author.