DEFINITION: “Hillary Derangement Syndrome” (“HDS”)

The willingness to accept – without a first, much less a second thought – anything read or stated about Hillary Clinton, on no other grounds than that the thing read or stated is negative.

I’d rather hoped to avoid writing another political blog post for a while, but closing in on the election it is clear that the general insanity that has come to define (to the extent that it hasn’t strangled it in the streets) our community of discourse that is American politics, I find myself having to say one last word before the votes are all cast and counted.

 

One of the more despicable points of intractable dogma amongst so many “cry baby” progressives is that, “If we can’t get everything we want, exactly the way we want it, the instant we want it, then making things worse is actually making things better!” Now, few if any of such progressives (who are not all, or even a majority of progressives, by any means) will actually admit to embracing such a position, since doing so would require a level of intellectual honesty which they have rejected wholesale. Nevertheless, it is there, and it manifests itself as raving HDS that is often times even more singularly unhinged than what one finds on the right-wing of the political spectrum.

For context, let us once again acknowledge the patently fascist characteristics of Trump and his populist appeal. Let us also recall that the fascists, in both Italy and Germany, came to power because other political players (the conservatives in the earlier cases, but also (with help) in our own) came to power because those players believed that the fascists could be controlled by other political instruments. Finally, let us also recall “Herstein’s First Law” – never underestimate human capacity for denial. This last is most pernicious with persons of better than average intelligence, as their denial will be fabricated with great sophistication; it will be lengthy (better to spend two hours manufacturing a lie than two seconds telling the truth) and full of big words, so that you know without ever bothering to read what they say that it must be terribly clever. Which brings us to the “Greens” party’s recent declaration of why Trump is preferable to Clinton.

The original firestorm was set off by a Daily Kos article whose headline read, “Yes, the ‘Green’ Party has Endorsed Trump Over Clinton.” Notice that the headline DOES NOT say that the Green Party has “endorsed” Trump simpliciter. Lying about this distinction has been one of the primary tactics of Green Party ideologues on this issue. The article includes a number of important updates, addressing the smoke screens, misdirections, and red herrings that have been tossed about with promiscuous abandon by Jill Stein and her supporters. But the most important issues (and the original Kos article does a fair job of highlighting these) are all to be found in the Green Party screed that set things off. I encourage you to read the whole thing, though you may need a large supply of your preferred source of chemically induced numbness to be at hand. I’ll highlight only a couple of points (the Daily Kos article highlights several others.) Let’s start with this jewel:

A Clinton presidency is D A N G E R O U S

Notice the extra big spelling of “dangerous,” so clearly it must be true. The media director who wrote this (“Jillian”), offers a few vapid excuses, but at the end of the day the real technique here is a purely emotional appeal – if I yell loudly enough, you’ll know that I am I M P O R T A N T (!!!) “Jillian” quotes, in order to misrepresent, Dr. King’s words, in order to advance the implicit claim that compromise is equivalent to passive acquiescence. She does not, of course, mention anything about King’s working with President Lyndon Johnson in order to pass the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, even as Johnson (who was obviously D A N G E R O U S (!!!)) massively expanded America’s involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in general, military actions which King denounced in the strongest terms possible. So it is pretty clear that “Jillian” (and Jill Stein, for that matter, since the latter has unqualifiedly signed off on “Jillian’s” statement) have no real clue what King really said, what he really did, or how he really went about doing it. This is as patently disgusting as the right-wing ideologues who try to fold Dr. King into their fetid nests.

Let’s now examine this gem:

So yes: If a Trump presidency would mean that we have to fight ignorants in the streets—I’m ready for that. I know that kind of racism. We already live in that kind of racism everyday—let’s bring it to light and start calling it out. It is time you start asking yourself some tough questions: Why are you so eagerly okay staying in the status quo …

Um, fight “ignorants” in the streets? I can’t tell if that’s just a typo because “Jillian” was all excited (they happen – I can’t reread any of my own blog posts w/o finding one, and this is when I’m typing in a relatively calm state of mind) or intended to be akin to “deplorables” – a “basket of deplorables,” a “street of ignorants”. But look instead at the blatant hypocrisy of puling about “staying in the status quo” and then telling us that a Trump presidency would be better.

Because it would involve fighting in the streets …

I confess that as articulate as I am, I am incapable of finding the words needed to express the totality of my contempt for persons advocating other persons engage in violence, especially when those original persons have no concept or experience of it.

But in one sense, it is clear that a Trump presidency would not be “status quo,” as it would be the enthusiastic embrace of overt fascism.

But, hey! At least that’s change, right?

And exactly what immeasurably pathetic level of infantilism would view not just the election of a woman, but hands down the most singularly qualified individual to the office of President of the United States, in our lifetimes if not in our entire history, as “status quo”? Well, the same sort of infantilism that will dismiss the Obama presidency saying, “If Obama can do what he’s done, it scares the hell out of me to think about the damage and destruction Hillary will cause … ”

Let’s see, what are some of the catastrophes Obama has visited upon us:

1. Marriage equality
2. First upgrade to national healthcare in 50 years
3. Lifted us out of the worst economic recession in over 80 years
4. A few other things …

But this simpering, cry baby “progressive” would have us believe that this is a bad thing. And why? Because Obama failed to give them/her everything they/she wanted, exactly the way they/she wanted it, the instant they/she wanted it.

This is the intellectual and emotional standing of a two year old. I do not make this comparison out of rhetorical excess, but as a directly applicable analogy and comparison, just as I am not being florid with my words when I say that Trump is a fascist.

This is HDS in full, living color.