We seem to be living in deranged times.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) seems to be a genuine psychological disorder, whereby its sufferers are unable to accept that Donald Trump won the US presidential election two years ago. Hillary Clinton, who lost the election, manifests the disorder in the very highest degree. She has never been able to get over losing. But she’s far from being the only one.
The current confirmation hearings of judge Kavanaugh for the US Supreme Court seem to be a further manifestation of TDS. For Kavanaugh is Trump’s nominee, and Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to have his confirmation quashed, and have been digging up any dirt on him that they can possibly find. It started with the claim that when he was 17 years old he might have inappropriately fondled a girl at some drunken party, she knows not when or where, because she was too drunk herself to be able to remember. And if that isn’t batshit crazy enough, a new accuser has come forward to claim that he’s actually a serial rapist, and one of a gang of serial rapists. At this rate, he’ll be accused of being a serial killer next week, with the disembowelled bodies buried three deep in his back yard.
The whole thing is hysterical madness, with one hysteria feeding off another hysteria. It’s a collective madness.
But we seem to live in a time of collective derangement. For antismoking hysteria is another form of collective madness. It used not to exist, but now afflicts millions. It’s now in fact almost a normal madness.
And global warming alarmism is another form of collective madness, closely related to antismoking hysteria. The object of its terror isn’t just tobacco smoke, but smoke of any kind whatsoever, or any that contains carbon dioxide, or maybe just carbon.
First tobacco smoke, then carbon, then Donald Trump, and now his hapless Supreme Court nominee. All are demonised. Ours has become a demon-haunted world, with new demons popping up everywhere, in growing numbers.
One would almost think that the American people did not elect a brash, successsful New York property developer, but instead Satan himself. And it is now the Prince of Darkness who reigns in the White House, and who must be evicted as soon as possible, by any means available.
The one common feature of all these various hysterias would seem to be that they are all promoted by the mainstream media. Impartial analysis seems to have vanished from the MSM. All they seem to do now is peddle one scare story after another.
And perhaps they do this because the MSM is dying. They’re losing their ability to shape the public narrative. And they are losing this ability because more and more voices are appearing in the new online media. They no longer have the monopoly they once had. And to be heard, they must shriek louder and louder.
If the MSM were closed down, much of the hysteria that they foment would ebb away. Judge Kavanaugh would be confirmed. Donald Trump would be recognised as a legitimate and effective and decisive US president. Global warming alarmism would evaporate. And so would antismoking hysteria.
Or maybe people should just do what I did a long time ago, and stop watching TV, and stop reading newspapers.
And maybe most people have already done that. If the MSM had been decisive in shaping public opinion during the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton would have won a landslide victory. But the American people ignored the MSM, and voted for Trump instead. And with midterm elections just weeks away, maybe they’re going to do exactly the same again, ignore the current MSM-driven hysteria, and vote for Trump Republicans.
After all, the American people endured some 18 months of non-stop MSM-driven Trump Derangement Syndrome before they went and elected him. It started on the day in June (or was it July) 2015 when Trump announced his candidacy. From that day on the entire MSM mounted a sustained campaign of vilification against him. It never stopped. But Americans voted for him anyway. And after another two years of exactly the same campaign of vilification, are they likely to have changed their minds about him? Is what didn’t work in 2015 and 2016 going to work in 2017 and 2018? Or will it have made them even more determined to vote for him and his wing of the Republican party?
We’ll find out in a few weeks.
Frank Davis 
You get some dumb schmuck to front up with some half baked claim, watch it being paraded by the media, then possibly grilled in court. If it achieve something, then it’s lauded for being ever so brave.
If it’s a lying opportunist (as in those cases where the daft bat did not delete social media or mobile phone messages) then sit back and watch it’s life turn to mush.
Just reading about Robert O’Neill, the guy who claims to have shot Bin Laden. He’s discovered the price of fame – and his detractors, who include some fairly unsavoury characters associated with Daesh, will be quite happy to obliterate him and his entire family.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11217651/Robert-ONeill-has-gone-from-hero-to-zero-after-claiming-glory-for-Osama-bin-Laden-killing.html
They’re being used, all of them, even the twat’s who are paraded for their lottery wins. The fact they don’t understand their role in the overall scheme allows free use of words like schmuck.
Smoking Lamp says: September 7, 2018 at 7:18 pm The “Smoking bandits” site is currently down. I hope it hasn’t been blocked. The antismoking extremists are prone to suppressing dissent.
I was blocked/banned/censured/suppressed by one Montreal journalist after I inquired about the credentials of the newly appointed spokesperson for Tobacco Control in Quebec, Genevieve Bois. I pointed out to him that Ms. Bois had no right to present herself as a Dr with a PHD in the mainstream press given that she had just finished her first cycle of medical studies in Family Medicine (in a group of several hundred other medical students) and was not yet a practicing MD. The University of Montreal Faculty of Medicine hands out provisional honorary doctorates to all its new graduates. It looks good on paper and probably impressed the heck out of all the people who saw Ms Bois denounce smokers on TV, listened to her do the same on the radio and read her interviews in the English and French newspapers. I wrote to this ‘journalist’ because he had interviewed Ms Bois for the Montreal Gazette. I was appalled that he hadn’t done any background research on this fraudulent huckster, so I sent him the details. Instead of thanking me, he accused me of witchhunting and then he blocked my twitter and email links. Ms Bois knowingly committed fraud and should be reprimanded by the Quebec Medical Association. All the journalists that aided and abetted her should be charged with fraud as well. Journalistic integrity needs to be resuscitated before it fades away and is never heard from, or seen, again.
slugbop007
no right to present herself as a Dr with a PHD
Unfortunately this goes on,
here too; anyone with a PhD in anything can call themselves (and be referred to as) “Dr” as a result.
Recently I’ve been reading books by Rick Gekoski, who writes of doing a “D.Phil” at Oxford, which seems to me a bit better.
That old American rural father and son joke – Dad, what are all those degrees?
BS – well, we all know what that means …
MS – More of the Same
PHD – Piled Higher and Deeper.
The title doctor belongs to people with a doctorate or PhD. The medical title doctor is a courtesy title,.
Correct.
Smoking Lamp says: September 7, 2018 at 7:18 pm The “Smoking bandits” site is currently down. I hope it hasn’t been blocked. The antismoking extremists are prone to suppressing dissent.
It is back up again – there has just been another post there. But, yes, the anti-smokers suppressing dissent by ALL means is not unheard of.
Meanwhile,
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2018/09/26/pdt-at-the-un/
“But we seem to live in a time of collective derangement.”
The ‘Left’ says that all cultures are deserving of respect; but, then they say that ‘Western Culture’ is destructive and must be destroyed.
The Left says that tolerance is good and dominance is bad; but, polical correctness insists on totally dominating our speech.
The Left says that all values are subjective; but, sexism and racism are evil.
The Left claims that all ‘Truth’ is relative; but, they insist that their ‘Truth’ is the only real ‘Truth’.
WTF
For Kavanaugh is Trump’s nominee, and Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to have his confirmation quashed, and have been digging up any dirt on him that they can possibly find. It started with the claim that when he was 17 years old he might have inappropriately fondled a girl at some drunken party, she knows not when or where, because she was too drunk herself to be able to remember. And if that isn’t batshit crazy enough, a new accuser has come forward to claim that he’s actually a serial rapist, and one of a gang of serial rapists.
I hate the psychology behind these publications. We women are supposed to be scared of him and run for “help”.
My answer to the girl who obviously wasn’t drunk enough when Trumps hands (?) may have strayed would be: “You weren’t drunk enough not to remember, so you weren’t drunk enough not to slap him across the face.”
The serial rapist lark I don’t buy. Rich, ugly (c’mon, Trump isn’t exactly a stunner), guys become usually beautiful to some women once they open their wallet. 2 people make a choice here – one opens the wallet, the other one their legs. It is what it is. I don’t criticize either.
The one common feature of all these various hysterias would seem to be that they are all promoted by the mainstream media. Impartial analysis seems to have vanished…..
And people wonder why even the most outlandish conspiracy theories gain popularity.
It’s not Trump who’s being accused of rape: it’s judge Kavanaugh.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-27/watch-live-kavanaugh-faces-accuser-first-time-marathon-hearing
I watched it up until 11pm and was particularly disgusted by the Democrats trying to get Kavanaugh to request the FBI to investigate himself, when it came out later that they had kept all knowledge of Dr Ford’s accusation away from the Republicans for 45 days (?) and sprung it on them when it was too late to have that very investigation.
Thank goodness he kept a diary.
Mind you, though I believed Dr. Ford believed every word she said, the mention of a therapist worried me, wasn’t the 1980’s when False Memory Syndrome began, created by therapists?
The 70s film: “You’ve got to get mad”. I know there’s mad and then there’s mad, but the sentiment is applicable: the Left’s madness and craziness is not strictly madness (though it manifests that way). It’s an affected tactic in an ideological war: the nonsense that we see in the mainstream and centre is the pinnacle of the metapolitical battle that takes place everywhere every day. The Left’s reasons for wanting to stop Kavanaugh have nothing to do with his actual conduct, they are about his beliefs and the trajectory of his beliefs. To that extent, the Left are to be admired: they are willing to fight, shamelessly and without principle.
The real problem isn’t the Left but the Right, especially the pro-liberty and pro-tradition Right (in my understanding of things, liberty/liberalism are right-wing and equated to tradition: withdrawal of the state, limited government, strong private and community institutions, etc.).
The Right is not willing to fight but instead remains fixated on loyalty to rules and institutions. Considering what is happening in this country, there ought to be tractors blocking the motorways and whole towns should be alight. That is not happening. Is it because the larger part of the British public is an overly-legalistic and conformist culture?
Not that I’m condoning their actions, but when French fisherman have an issue with English fisherman, they don’t mess around. When French farmers have an issue with the French government, they make it known.
c.f. the 2001 fuel protests and the Poll Tax riots – those are examples of Good Madness, but were those exceptions that prove the rule?