Let’s talk delusion. It’s turning rampant in our public discussions and policy.
Delusion is seeing something other than what is there, false beliefs resistant to reality, and there can be a variety of medical, mental or other reasons behind it. Self-delusion seems more the word for what we’re seeing — the purposeful substitution of what we want to see for what is there.
Neither is good for governing, of course or much else that involves other people, like relationships. You can’t expect that a leader who doesn’t recognize real problems to come up with appropriate solutions, particularly if that leader is subbing in partisan propaganda for fact or ignoring the obvious to bring about a desired decision or policy.
Throw egotistical arrogance and power hunger into the mix, and you get closer to what we’ve been seeing in Donald Trump and the recent developments about setting off the tariff bomb on the economy, pursuing excessive culture war attacks and personal legal retributions, and allowing even already massive deportation campaign to careen into street kidnaps of U.S. citizens.
And it is spreading to Trump Cabinet members chosen more for their ability to spread Trump truth rather than experience or knowledge about their areas, to Republican congress members, to Fox News and other avowedly right-leaning media outlets. In the name of political goals, apparently it is perfectly fine to see night as day, to continue to assert that the 2020 election was fraudulent, that Jan. 6 was a “day of love” and that there was nothing odd about the Defense Secretary and intelligence figures sharing live attack plans on hackable personal phones through a commercial app. Delusion is running rampant.
Too Many Examples
How else do you explain White House statements that the “economy is beginning to roar” when we are seeing near panic in financial markets and widespread anxiety about prices, jobs, and continuing damage from setting blanket tariffs that have kicked off a global trade war? Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wanted us to admire a backwards-looking jobs report rather than markets in free-fall and global anger over tariffs for which no one can produce economic evidence.
Other than political self-delusion to justify permanent tax cuts heavily favoring the wealthy and corporations do we see Trump, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham Jr. as head of the Senate budget committee, and the Republican Senate majority jamming through a made-up accounting manipulation that insists that tax cuts will not add to the national debt? That Senate Republicans’ bill now looks to be in trouble with House Republicans’ own version, adding to political blur.
What are we supposed to make of the building clash between Trump and courts over rulings that deportations — even if good public policy — are being done in a way that ignores administrative law and is rounding up people with legal documentation? Not only does the administration admit making a mistake about a Maryland man deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order and refusing to lift a finger about it, but now reports in The Washington Post that at least seven U.S. citizens have been arrested.
Where Trump sees “waste, fraud and abuse” in dismissing tens of thousands of federal workers, the rest of the country sees chaotic interruption of full programs that merely run afoul of Trump’s personal tastes — adding that he “doesn’t care” about the loss of government services even to his own backers. His repeated statements about fraud are wrong — and delusional.
Trump has released photos of bomb damage to singular Houthi missile launch sites as proof that his bombing campaign (as opposed to Joe Biden’s bombing campaign) is effective, yet we’re hearing from journalists that the raids are having only limited effectiveness. Pentagon officials acknowledge that $200 million worth of bombs in three weeks have not destroyed the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.
Is there an explanation other than heeding the delusions of Laura Loomer, a Trump right-wing influencer, to demand the heads of the generals running the NSA and national cybersecurity efforts for the crime of having been appointed by Gen. Mark Milley, former Joint Chiefs head in disfavor with Trump?
Is there something other than delusion that prompts Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as top health official, to fire the lead vaccine doctor at the NIH while telling the increasing number of measles victims to drink cod liver oil for vitamin A? Do we need to re-run Trump’s bleach prescriptions to cleanse the body of Covid?
It’s Not Spin, It’s Delusion
Without liking it, we can understand spin. We can understand restating things to put an administration in the best light. We even can understand pressure towards persuading the public to go along with a particular program.
But we’re seeing “solutions” from Trump that have nothing to do with the problems at hand and then seeing enormous mounds of self-congratulations for having dealt with a problem that had never presented itself. And then hearing it echo through Fox commentators as if it was problematic in the first place.
If fentanyl smuggling and rampant migrant crime were the prompts for a mass deportation program that refuses to recognize due process and more, do we think addiction has ended, that Americans are not seeking out drugs wherever they can find them, and that crime has stopped?
If we really believe antisemitism is out of control on college campuses (and not at the dinner parties at Mar-a-Lago), has withholding zillions of bucks from university research programs truly changed the personal safety of Jewish students around the country? For that matter, if U.S. policy is so dependent that nary a critical word be uttered about Israel’s re-occupation of Gaza and its continuing land grabs in the West Bank, Syria and southern Lebanon, has it worked to bring about the desired ceasefire that Trump promised along with Gaza as Riviera-status resort?
The idea that delusion is fundamental to the Trump vision seems to apply equally to describing a problem, to executing a response and in measuring its effectiveness. That a self-deluding Trump is demanding adherence to his illusionary targets from his team makes this a public contagion.
Image at top: Max Mishin via Pexels
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