John Lewis Archives - Stephen Altschuler

I think of how it must have been for the dinosaurs dying and breathing their last gasps on the land masses of our planet 60 million years ago. I think of this as I read the news of a Capitol police officer murdered while defending our representative congresspeople from a pro-Trump and Trump incited mob who invaded our Capitol building, a building steeped in the history of our democracy. That murder should be as catastrophic as the asteroid which struck Earth leading the death of all those predatory dinosaurs.

The murder came as the result of the rioters breeching the halls of our Congress, which came as the result of incendiary Trump rhetoric over the past five years and most recently at a rally just before the attack and breech, which came as the result of Republican congresspeople naysayers questioning the legitimacy of an election proven fully legitimate by the courts and election officials from every state in the union, which came as the result of right wing sources such as Fox News, Newsmax, AON, which came as a result of false and scurrilous conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which came as a result of extreme right wing white supremacist groups such as Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer which rose to prominence as a result of Trump giving tacit, and often open, approval of these grotesque and dangerous people. Trump’s base of voters who acted with cult mentality believing, lockstep, in all of Trump’s lies and misinformation and [Read more…] about The Last Gasp of Trump and his Republican Enablers

How do they originate and why do they stick? Is it boredom? Is it fear? Is it vengeance? Is it retribution? Is it the need for a scapegoat? Is it protection from those we think we need protection from? For most of my adult life, I worked as a mental health counselor with people with severe mental disorders–people who often had paranoid hallucinations and delusions. They would sometimes think they were being followed by the CIA or FBI or local police, or they thought they were Jesus returned or that they had bugs crawling all over them. I felt bad for these people. They were afflicted with these thoughts, without themselves being bad or evil. But people who believe in conspiracy theories are not necessarily mentally ill. They are fully conscious and aware of their delusions, and the harm and fear they cause. And let me add here that some conspiracy theories, like those around President Kennedy’s assassination, are valid and warrant continued investigation.

The latest delusional one is this QAnon conspiracy theory which has gained much traction since 2017, particularly among supporters of Donald Trump. Even Trump himself [Read more…] about Why the Crazy Conspiracy Theories?