[oregontim]

This morning I saw Ali Velshi interview a former country health officer who resigned her position after threats, including to her family.  You might ask why this didn't get put in the health officials under threat thread, but that's not what the thrust of this post is about.

She said - and this is the first time I have heard this - there are some people sick with Covid, even about to be put on ventilators who won't accept they have Covid-19 because they think it is a hoax.  I just about spit out my Cheerios.  It's one thing to claim something is a hoax when you aren't personally experiencing it. It's quite another to deny you have it when you do.  I mean this is like being on fire and saying you aren't on fire.

This is a serious psychosis way more dangerous than Covid itself.  I always think there is some sort of rational solution to all problems, whether they are actually doable or regardless of whether they will realistically be put in place or not.  But this has me totally lost. How do you deal with people who are so detached from reality that they can't even grasp it when it is literally physically impacting them? And what can we do as a society to stop  people from developing this psychosis, or curing those who have it?

"This is a serious psychosis way more dangerous than Covid itself." Yes, indeed.

It feels like it's reality in this country and these times. We have 50-60 million or so adults in this country who believe only what they see inside an enormous group-think bubble. Covid is a hoax. The last election was stolen. So-called "mainstream media" is a conspiracy. They are locked in so firmly that actual information doesn't reach them.

This is what we baby boomers imagined, as we grew up during the cold war, was happening inside the U.S.S.R. and China. It's similar to what we abhor about North Korea. State media broadcasting propaganda that is the people's only source of information. All day every day.

Except in this case, since we lost the equal time rules when news went cable, and then social media took over word of mouth with paid, fake word of mouth, it's happening inside the U.S.A. Tens of millions of people accept truth as told to them by Trumpism. Their belief, gullibility, and loyalty has had four years to fester. They don't know or care about the constitution or the history of democracy and rule of law. They care about white grievance and Roe v Wade.

I'm not (not my expertise) that professionals who deal with delusional people have learned that the least successful approach is to try to attack the delusion. It's taken as confirmation of conspiracy. Does that sound familiar? Do we have a collective delusion affecting tens of millions of our own citizens? How do we deal with that.

And, just like OF suggests here, the embedded popular denial of Covid is perhaps the deadliest, most outrageous, result. But not the only one. We have a country split in two, and no obvious path to bring us back together. I shudder to think what this means for the next generation.

[oregontim]

This morning I saw Ali Velshi interview a former country health officer who resigned her position after threats, including to her family.  You might ask why this didn't get put in the health officials under threat thread, but that's not what the thrust of this post is about.

She said - and this is the first time I have heard this - there are some people sick with Covid, even about to be put on ventilators who won't accept they have Covid-19 because they think it is a hoax.  I just about spit out my Cheerios.  It's one thing to claim something is a hoax when you aren't personally experiencing it. It's quite another to deny you have it when you do.  I mean this is like being on fire and saying you aren't on fire.

This is a serious psychosis way more dangerous than Covid itself.  I always think there is some sort of rational solution to all problems, whether they are actually doable or regardless of whether they will realistically be put in place or not.  But this has me totally lost. How do you deal with people who are so detached from reality that they can't even grasp it when it is literally physically impacting them? And what can we do as a society to stop  people from developing this psychosis, or curing those who have it?

"This is a serious psychosis way more dangerous than Covid itself." Yes, indeed.

It feels like it's reality in this country and these times. We have 50-60 million or so adults in this country who believe only what they see inside an enormous group-think bubble. Covid is a hoax. The last election was stolen. So-called "mainstream media" is a conspiracy. They are locked in so firmly that actual information doesn't reach them.

This is what we baby boomers imagined, as we grew up during the cold war, was happening inside the U.S.S.R. and China. It's similar to what we abhor about North Korea. State media broadcasting propaganda that is the people's only source of information. All day every day.

Except in this case, since we lost the equal time rules when news went cable, and then social media took over word of mouth with paid, fake word of mouth, it's happening inside the U.S.A. Tens of millions of people accept truth as told to them by Trumpism. Their belief, gullibility, and loyalty has had four years to fester. They don't know or care about the constitution or the history of democracy and rule of law. They care about white grievance and Roe v Wade.

I'm not (not my expertise) that professionals who deal with delusional people have learned that the least successful approach is to try to attack the delusion. It's taken as confirmation of conspiracy. Does that sound familiar? Do we have a collective delusion affecting tens of millions of our own citizens? How do we deal with that.

And, just like OF suggests here, the embedded popular denial of Covid is perhaps the deadliest, most outrageous, result. But not the only one. We have a country split in two, and no obvious path to bring us back together. I shudder to think what this means for the next generation.