Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter is published twice a week (most of the time) and features behind-the-scenes stories and articles on politics, media, and culture. The subscription costs only $5 per month, but you can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Our Land here.
In the last part of my Our Land newsletter, I wrote about Trump’s normalization syndrome, a term I try to popularize and a condition that demands greater recognition, and I observed that a major component of SNT is forgetfulness. The ultimate dangers of American democracy cannot be easily minimized or ignored if the main points remain entirely new in our minds. And Donald Trump and his crusader rely on the human ability to brush aside or downplay unpleasant memories, to the point of absurdly asking voters. “Is your situation greater today than it was four years ago?That’s crazy. Four years ago, we were in the midst of a pandemic that was killing thousands of people every week; By the end of April 2020, 60,000 Americans had died. “– and crushing the economy. It’s a time of worry and queues for food, as Trump downplayed and mishandled the crisis.
It’s surprising (and a critique of the American political formula) that the guy whose mishandling of the pandemic has led to thousands of preventable deaths could be in the running to return to the presidency. Worse, Trump and his friends can use 2020 as a promotion point. I was baffled. Then I read a recent article in the Atlantic written by George Makari, director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Richard Friedguy, professor of clinical psychiatry and director of the Weill Cornell Psychopharmacology Clinic, that sheds light on this. (Makari turns out to be an old schoolmate. )
Makari and Friedman set out to answer a slightly different question: Why is America so depressed?They point out that unemployment rates are low and the stock market is high. Still, President Joe Biden’s approval score is abysmal and polls show that Americans’ satisfaction with their lives is near an all-time high. “And nearly a portion of Americans surveyed in January said they were worse off than they were three years ago,” they write. Both men point out that experts and pundits have struggled to explain the malaise. Inflation (which went up and then went down)?Ukraine?Gaza?The border crisis? They dismiss such conceivable reasons and insist that experts are “overlooking a very important factor. “Their response: Covid. They write:
Four years ago, the country was brought to its knees in the face of a historic catastrophe. COVID-19 has hospitalized nearly 7 million Americans and killed more than a million; It still kills many every week. It has closed schools and forced others into social isolation. At most overnight, most of the country was plunged into a state of great anxiety and then, quickly, into grief and mourning. But the country hasn’t come together enough to acknowledge the tragedy it has suffered. As clinical psychiatrists, we see the effects of these emotional disorders on a daily basis and know that, when not treated well, they can lead to a general sense of unhappiness and anger – precisely the negative emotional state that can lead a country to misperceive its wealth.
In short, we have experienced a national trauma and we have completely learned it (aside, the same can be said of January 6).
More Makari and Friedman:
The pressure to emerge from the horrors of 2020 continues. Who wouldn’t want to wake up from this nightmare and pretend that nothing happened?In addition, humans have a special ability to clear away our most painful memories. In a 2009 study, participants were markedly deficient at remembering how they felt in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, likely because those memories filtered through their existing emotional state. Similarly, a study published in Nature last year found that people’s recollection of the severity of COVID risk in 2020 was skewed by their attitude toward vaccines months or years later.
In the face of an overwhelming and painful truth like COVID, forgetting can be helpful and, to some extent, healthy. This allows other people to temporarily let go of their worries and miseries and focus on the pleasures and demands of everyday life, restoring a sense of control. This way, their losses don’t define them, but they become manageable.
Forgetting can be helpful. This is consistent with what I struggle to understand about Trump’s current position. People long for the smart old days. . . even when they weren’t that smart. At the same time, untreated trauma creates discomfort that affects existing attitudes. With Trump and the pandemic, many Americans don’t need to remember that terrible moment accurately, but the unresolved issues of that terrible moment are generating discontent with the current moment that Trump himself can seize on. Let’s talk about a bank robbery.
In part, Trump may (try) to get away with it because there hasn’t been a post-pandemic status quo of a consensus discourse on Covid. Some congressional hearings, organized by Democrats, tested the Trump administration’s moves during the crisis. But Democrats failed to turn those sessions into high-profile cases. And there has been no primary commission to investigate what has been the worst public health emergency in a century. Accountability has been absent. It made forgetting easier.
Makari and Friedman that “entrusting painful memories to the River Lethe. . . It has apparent drawbacks, especially as the months and years go by. Ignoring such reports deprives us of the opportunity to be informed about them. In addition, denying painful memories and watching them continue as if everything is general distorts a person’s emotional life and produces unfortunate effects. In excessive cases, in veterans, this can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. (“We’re not suggesting that the entire country is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of COVID,” they claim. )
Traumatic memories determine how the brain works and therefore how the offer is perceived. As they say, “Traumatic reminiscence does not resemble an ancient event, yet it returns in an eternal offering, disconnected from its origin, leaving its bearer in search of something. “An explanation. And, in fact, everyday life gives many unpleasant reasons at the origin of these emotions: wandering friends, the value of purchases, or the direction of the country. We may not forget all the terrible main points of the first one (Will millions of us die?) “But,” Makari and Friedman say, “the emotions of the party are still very much alive. This can make it difficult to make a rational assessment of the state of our lives and our country.
So if we’re still recovering from those terrible years of death and stress – and that’s distorting the way we look at our lives today – what can we do about it?These two clinical psychiatrists state that “we will have to do more than forget it or simply not forget it. Rather, you’ll have to rework the disconnected memory in context and thus move it firmly into the afterlife. One solution, they say, “is for leaders to inspire memories while also offering accurate and reliable data about the afterlife and the present. “They see the politics of all this the same way I wrote: Trump, who failed in the pandemic reaction and spread erroneous data about Covid, has “become the beneficiary of our collective amnesia, and Biden the repository of our lingering emotions. “discontent. ” However, they state: “Some of this misattribution can be corrected simply by looking at the provocative events of the past four years and not forgetting what Americans experienced. This process of remembering is emotionally cathartic and, if done correctly, can even help update distorted memories with more accurate ones.
I’m not sure such a solution can take place in an election year marked by record political polarization. Any attempt to revisit those dark days to set the record directly would be met with a barrage of opposition from Trump, the Republican Party, and the conservative media, filled with cries of “deception” and accusations of a deep state conspiracy. Look at what happened when Democrats tried to piece together an account of what led up and down on Jan. 6. There are no longer impartial observers (or broadly independent observers) in the world of political media who could simply consult an effort at national memory and reconciliation.
It is clear that Biden and his advisers have made the decision to avoid Covid, as a political and political matter. He rarely talks about it and his leadership doesn’t make much of an effort to publicize booster shots or other anti-Covid measures. they seem to need to avoid the divisive culture wars unleashed by Covid. Makari and Friedman argue, however, that reminding voters of the worst days of the pandemic need not “create more problems” for Biden. They write: “Our paintings lead us to believe that the effect would be exactly the opposite. Grief and remembrance rituals help other people combine and share their grief so they can come back more lucid to face everyday life. By encouraging Americans not to forget what we suffered in combination, Biden could help us break free and live more fully in the present.
I’d like to believe that. And I’d like to see Biden try. As I noted, I’m surprised that Trump’s misleading handling of the crisis hasn’t disqualified him from a return commitment. Then again, I can say the same thing about Trump’s big lie and January 6th. We’ve heard that the first step to recovery is to detect the problem and resolve it. Both with Covid and with January 6, a part of the political formula has no interest in such a process. He believes, rightly, that his survival depends on his ability to save him. Will Biden and the Democrats be able to do it alone? It would be quite a task.
While experts have failed to fully explain the American public’s moodiness, Makari and Friedman have given us an intelligent diagnosis that is helping us perceive at least some of this unusual and provocative political moment. (On Sunday, the New York Times published a (clever article that tested the existing political effect on the pandemic. )His article reminds us that psychology is very important in perceiving voters’ attitudes. However, I wonder if it’s not too late to fill your prescription. I once heard Gore Vidal refer to this country of the United States as amnesia. Our challenge is that many of our fellow citizens are very pleased to live there.
David Corn’s American Psycho: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Mad, a New York Times bestseller, is in a new expanded paperback edition.
Subscribe to Mother Jones Daily to get our most sensible stories delivered straight to your inbox.
We’re on our online fundraising goals and can’t run out of donations month after month. Maybe you’ve heard it? It’s incredibly complicated in the news industry right now, with layoffs intensifying and startups complicated and investments collapsing.
The crisis facing journalism and democracy will soon disappear. And neither will Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.
That’s precisely why, despite the demanding situations we face, we simply took a big sip and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of famous journalists who create the podcast and public radio show Reveal.
If you can contribute even a few dollars, please help us accelerate the pace of giving. We simply can’t keep falling behind our fundraising goals month after month.
Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery told our team recently, and this team is one hundred percent made up of readers like you who make all of this possible: “This is a year to prove that we can make this merger a success, grow our audience, and make an impact, attract more investment, and continue to grow. More broadly, this is a year in which the long-term of journalism and democracy is at stake. We want to address each and every life story, each and every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the ground. I’m very proud of all the hard work that has gotten us to this point and I’m confident we can get there.
We’re going to do that. If you can do it now, thank Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgent donation today.
We’re on our online fundraising goals and can’t run out of donations month after month. Maybe you’ve heard it? It’s incredibly complicated in the news industry right now, with layoffs intensifying and startups complicated and investments collapsing.
The crisis facing journalism and democracy will soon disappear. And neither will Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.
That’s precisely why, despite the demanding situations we face, we simply took a big sip and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of famous journalists who create the podcast and public radio show Reveal.
If you can contribute even a few dollars, please help us accelerate the pace of giving. We simply can’t keep falling behind our fundraising goals month after month.
Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery told our team recently, and this team is one hundred percent made up of readers like you who make all of this possible: “This is a year to prove that we can make this merger a success, grow our audience, and make an impact, attract more investment, and continue to grow. More broadly, this is a year in which the long-term of journalism and democracy is at stake. We want to address each and every life story, each and every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the ground. I’m very proud of all the hard work that has gotten us to this point and I’m confident we can get there.
We’re going to do that. If you can do it now, thank Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgent donation today.
Subscribe to Mother Jones Daily to get our most sensible stories delivered straight to your inbox.
Save big on a full year of research, insights, and insights.
Help Mother Jones journalists dig deeper with a tax-deductible donation.
Cheap too! Subscribe and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $14. 95.
Award-winning photojournalism. Awesome video. Fear of conversations.
Subscribe to Mother Jones Daily to get our most sensible stories delivered straight to your inbox.