Cult 45, Part III: Wishful Thinking Becomes the Measure of Reality

Reality testing is an element often used when a psychologist evaluates the mental status of an individual. A person in a psychotic state is often unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy, mistaking things happening within the mind for external events. And so we see everything from hallucinations to delusions and paranoid ideation. Most of us have a touch of this at times but it doesn’t interfere with our ability to navigate the world or our relationships. They are simply an element of our character. Few of us may know someone who sees and hears things no one else does (psychics notwithstanding), but most of us know people with a fixed set of questionable beliefs they hold onto as though they were realities – paranoia and beliefs in conspiracies being the most debilitating.

For ordinary people, wishful thinking can be creative and motivating. It is not a problem unless it overtakes the rest of the personality – or the person is in a position of power over those who have a better orientation toward reality. Unfortunately, over the last four years, wishful thinking has been made the measure of “reality.” This is a sign of mental instability. We all have our fantasies, of course, along with those blurred areas where we distort our perception of things out of some emotional charge, but most of us can adequately discern the difference. We can avoid most of life’s hazards, maintain some degree of stability and healthy relationships, and work constructively toward our goals.

This president and his propagandists have been successful in uprooting their minions from any grounding in reality, leaving them prey to rumor, innuendo, and a persistent stream of lies and disinformation fed to them by opportunists. They have been reduced to copies of their leader’s whims.

If a reality violated the president’s fantasy, it was ignored, dismissed, minimized, or decried as fake news. People who attempted to assert reality were criticized, exiled, or fired. People of his party stood by silently, taking advantage of the far-right mind control.

His followers largely adopted the same defenses: if it did not match their wishful fantasy, they dismissed it as fake. Because he said he would win and because he said he did win, his followers have fallen in line, sharing the same fantasy. And now we see armed groups, screaming women and men, and mindless talking heads repeating the party-line propaganda that the election was stolen. And we saw the consequences as armed, violent groups stormed the U.S. Capitol like some invading army.

This is essentially a social psychosis that threatens not only the mental health of those under its thrall but anyone who might be in their way. They suffer sufficiently from manufactured but very real feelings of anger, betrayal, and persecution that they can justify their violations of legal and social norms. They are sincere and cannot see outside the bubble created for them by propagandists. They fear invasions of all kinds, and that fear has been used as a motivator by unscrupulous manipulators. Prosecution of their crimes will be framed as persecution because persecution is their method of control. This fantasy condition with its fixed delusions is not very responsive to reasoning.

It’s clear that the educational and mental health needs of a large part of our population has gone unmet for decades. White supremacy, misogyny, theocracy, predatory economics, and social oppression have been unleashed upon us all, partly because we – the majority – have been in denial of these festering forces operating in plain sight in everyday life. We may have thought (fantasized) that we were safely beyond such things, but we’ve had a rude awakening over the last few years and, especially, the events in D.C.

Although we can look forward to changes with the inauguration of a new administration, and the potential cleansing of a corrupt self-serving regime, we must be aware of two things. First, corruption comes with power and is not limited to any party. Second, our own fantasy that would imagine that new leaders will make these changes for us is only a partial reality. In reality, it is up to all of us to maintain the vision of what we are for (not just against). The social ills, from which these cult members’ insidious fantasies come, must be addressed, and the walls held fast by bigotry broken down not only through law, but by education and understanding. Our own hearts must also be cleansed of the rancor of these years, and a better fantasy created that helps us be of genuine service to one another in the context of the social and scientific realities of our world. This is just the beginning of the work.