Bedlam - A Forensic Psychologist's Take On The Collective Hysteria Of The American Left

Arnold Beethoven - no relation to the great German composer, but always asked - was the Chief Forensic Psychologist at one of America's best known university hospitals, and was the author of Delusionary Visions - The Reality Of Reformist Political Movements In America', a paper published in the Southwest Journal of Forensic Psychology (2025:Vol. 4, pps. 24-38). 

In this paper he described the viral nature of political dementia:

Political animus in America is as old as the hills, and as common as the scurrilous, defamatory, ad hominem presidential campaigns of the past. And American politics have never been genteel affairs. Yet there is something different about today's political atmosphere. The animus, scorn, and hostility, common during an electoral campaign and thrown indiscriminately by the candidates, have become perennial. The level, intensity, and viciousness of the attacks on the American President reach a level of bilious hate that suggests collective hysteria. 

The campaign between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson set new lows.

The presidential race was full of mudslinging accusations and character assassination. Adam’s supporters accused Jefferson of sympathizing with the Southern slaves whom he wished to emancipate going so far as to say he maintained a “Congo Harem” at Monticello. 

In one over-the-top condemnation, Yale President Timothy Dwight said that if Jefferson were elected, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced. The air will be rent with the cries of distress, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crime."

The accusations continued right up until the election. One Jefferson supporter likened Adams to a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” 

Adams’ supporters countered with a leaflet calling Jefferson, “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” Jefferson’s camp claimed the president reportedly planned to smuggle London prostitutes across the Atlantic to satiate his sinful tastes. 

This, says forensic psychologist Beethoven, is nothing compared to today. 

Ordinary Americans - cow-milking, 9-5, church-going, dutiful husbands and wives - have shown no limits, no temperance, no hesitation in casting the President in a demonic, Satanic light.  A febrile, untethered and uncontrollable animus has been abroad in all quarters. It is nothing less than mass hysteria. 

The first documented evidence of this malady was reported in England in 1757 when a political campaign in Surrey was noted in the local press. 

Never before in our fair corner of Old England have we seen such devilish idolatry and the abandonment of reason and good judgement.  There is not a soul on our hallowed ground immune to this mortal infection.  Husbands are pitted against wives, accusatory children roam the countryside, and bilious, venomous cries for murder emanate from the hustings.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the election, one little different from any in the past, focusing on local issues - the extension of the grange to the east, recobbling of the High Road, a tax increase of a few farthings etc. - but somehow issues, personalities, character, and 'something in the air' caused the entire community to lose its bearings and come apart at the seams.

Alderman P. Alling Wofford went against the grain, neither monarchist nor populist, neither for Cromwell or the King, but one of a kind.  He fit no mold or cast.  He was outspoken and unabashed about the nature of man, 'a creature of God with divine ambitions' and as such led a libertine, unfettered life.  Social mores were nothing more than tethers on man's natural, uninhibited soul, and should be disregarded. 

All this was tied up with a view of government, governance, rule, and rights.  Wofford was a proto-conservative and hated for his insurrectionist, anti-Christian notions.  Yet at the same time he struck a chord with the local populace, many of whom were no more than serfs in a patriarchal system.  He gave them a voice, and whether or not their privileged, wealthy landlords would listen was irrelevant - it was the vox populi which mattered. 

Never before had such a vicious, wild, and completely unhinged expression of virulent hatred ever been experienced in what was ordinarily a peaceful, accommodating province; and once the animus became universal Surrey was like bedlam - streets full of demented, wracked, insane souls howling, pulling their hair, and ripping their clothes from their bodies. 

There were many more such examples of mass political hysteria - one in Dresden in 1804, another in Turin in 1850 and another in Lourdes, of all places in 1905. 

The outburst in Lourdes made the news, for the citizens of the town, used to the prayerful vigils at the grotto of the Virgin Mary, the long lines of penitents, cripples, and spiritual aspirants, and the overall holiness of the place, had turned manic during an electoral campaign.  All semblance of Christian virtue, Catholic catechetical faith and wisdom, and communal generosity had disappeared.  Lourdes was like Broadmoor, the hellhole of a mental institution for the criminally insane in England. 

The conditions for such political hysteria are quite different today of course.  Democracy was only a notion at the time of these early recorded incidents, public participation in the electoral process extremely limited to local issues and candidates; but the similarities cannot be ignored. 

'Collective political insanity is real', Professor Beethoven wrote. 

What were the particular socio-cultural variables which influenced this unusual and remarkable political virus?  How was it that progressives, active in America since the early days of Brandeis, Lafollette, and Gompers, men of rectitude, principle, and respectful persuasiveness, had become so psychotic in their vision?  

Donald Trump was an aggressive conservative, steeped in traditional Republican values of small government, limited regulations, an unfettered free market, nationalism and individualism and willing to use presidential muscle to promote this agenda; but he was no madman, no Rasputin, no Satanic evil. 

Yet incredibly he was believed to be so; and the more the conviction was expressed and went viral through the media, the more it was adopted as received wisdom and truth.  Men and women who ordinarily would parse, disaggregate, disassemble, and analyze a political policy or position and come to a reasoned conclusion, had now lost any and all rational ability to separate fact from fiction.  

Suddenly everything Trump did was ipso facto evil, wrong, and devilish and everyone believed it - everyone from shopkeepers to surgeons to the man in the street, Democrats in tradition and belief, became infected. 

The popular meme is that if Donald Trump cured cancer he would be accused of wrongdoing, unbolting the foundations of democracy, robbing the people of their rights, enriching himself in collusion with big pharma, and more. 

There is psychiatric reasoning behind this ascription of evil.  People who are unable to grasp and come to grips with radical change, whose minds have become ossified and unresponsive to alteration, often invoke a supernatural power for explanation, and in so doing cross a psychiatric boundary from sanity to insanity

'It is ironic' Dr. Beethoven went on, 'that this feral, wild, assuming, collective mental illness was already given a name - Trump Derangement Syndrome.  How fitting and perceptive, another example of popular wisdom which is often far ahead of the scientific arts'. 

The Sturm und Drang continues as loud as ever.  Progressives will not stop beating the drums until the tyrant is strung up, until the scourge of evil has been removed from the land. 

Diseases cannot be cured overnight and some are chronic and resistant to treatment; but others simply die out, run their course, are depleted and ineffectual. Even if this particular political hysteria goes into hibernation or remission, it will certainly resurface when the times and conditions are right.  

'Wackos rule!' was the sign on one suburban lawn amidst 'Democracy Matters, Hate Has No Home Here, and All Are Welcome' banners. Professor Beethoven laughed when he saw it.  'See', he said to a colleague travelling with him, 'the people are always right'. 

Around The Bend - How Politics Dements, The Feral Antics Of Ladies Teas

Vicki Barton held political tea parties - events at her suburban Washington home meant to share feelings about Donald Trump and in so doing, relieve some of the building, often insupportable anger that everyone felt.

These women were all mature, older, retired professionals who should be enjoying sundowners on the decks of their homes in Tampa or Tucson, but who simply couldn't find it in themselves after decades of political engagement to just take off and leave their younger colleagues in the lurch.

 

The tea parties which always started with genteel chatter about grandchildren and the last snowstorm, quickly, with Vicki's practiced orchestral leadership, became voluble and heated.  The very mention of the President touched off an inchoate anger, a choking, gasping but futile grasp for words to describe their hatred for the man. 

All the ladies spoke at once, some stood up and waved their arms, others clucked and flapped until the whole parlor was like a frenzied henhouse.

This was the first time in their decades-long affiliation with the Democratic Party that they had felt such animus, such untoward, bilious hatred for the occupant of the Oval Office.  

The Bushes were bad enough, Tricky Dick was a crook, and Ronald Reagan a goofy actor; but Trump was of a different ilk - a dangerously unhinged despot not unlike Hitler.  Who could watch federal agents rounding up asylees and herding them off into cattle cars and not see shades of the Waffen SS, the Gestapo, and torchlight parades?

Bettina Phelps stood up, banged the coffee table and sent teacups flying.  'I have the floor!', she shouted, spinning this way and that, flailing her arms, her face, neck, and bodice turning a nasty, splotchy red and white color.  

It was a full minute before she could regain her composure and say what she had to say, something about the climate and transgenderism, but conflated all in an incomprehensible mélange. 

The ladies around the table nodded knowingly.  Bettina did not have to make sense to get her point across.  The clock was ticking, Donald Trump was still wreaking havoc and next presidential election was still years off. 

Bettina's infection went viral and one by one the ladies stood up and howled, energized, frustrated, bilious with anger and hatred, all fighting with themselves to get the words out, to shout their warnings, their fear, and their call to arms. 

Bill Barton, Vicki's husband promised his wife that he would stay put in his upstairs office and keep to himself.  Her tea parties were her affair; but this time he couldn't help himself, and leaning over the railing watched the goings on below.  

Hortie Adams was blowing her stack about racism - a large woman who defied the upper-middle class svelte, Pilates, image of the well-to-do suburban matron and whose rolls of fat flopped this way and that as she threw her arms around, giving her a frenetic, crazed Michelin Man look.

Bill smothered a laugh.  These ladies were wacko, no other word for it, but then again, nothing surprising there.  The Jack Nicholson character in the movie As Good As It Gets asked by an admiring student how he writes about women so well, replies 'I think of a man and take away reason and accountability'. 

Now, despite what he was thinking, Bill was no misogynist. As a matter of fact, to his wife's everlasting suspicion, he loved women.  This caterwauling and screechy catfighting was part of the deal.  As long as they were complaisant lovers, women could howl their heads off about Donald Trump till the cows came home. 

Looked at more dispassionately and more objectively Bill's view of women was not of the most charitable kind but one had to ask what got into these ordinarily sedate, mature, and reasonable ladies? How could they be transformed so easily from good homemakers and mothers into screaming banshees?

The conservative press joked about TDS - Trump Derangement Syndrome - and indeed the wild, unhinged, feral hatred of the man went beyond normal political differences. 

Needless to say, there was much academic consideration of the subject.  Political observers who were quite familiar with the protests against Nixon and the 'Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?' shouts, were at a loss to explain the level of feverish, demented cries against Donald Trump. 

'A coincidence of historic proportions', wrote Prof. Emeritus Arthur Barth of Duke. 'The perfect storm of hysterical idealism, an Armageddon mentality, a viral, inchoate, frenzy of deep-seated hatred,  and a President who loves nothing more than to fuel the flames of febrile political insanity'. 

His words were uncharacteristically harsh, unbefitting for an academic, but in answer to his critics, he only said, 'If it walks like a duck...', enraging his liberal colleagues on the faculty, but given his Emeritus and tenured stature, he could be in a very fuck-all mood. The conservative press picked up on the exchange. Barth was 'telling it like it is'. 

Now, the surprising thing of it all was that this so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome had a very salubrious effect on those affected.  It felt good to release these heretofore closeted and unleashed passions.  'I have never felt better', said Bettina Phelps, flushed, excited, and happy as she left Vicki's tea party.  There was something euphoric about hate, as ironic as that might sound, the ladies all agreed, Ecstasy without a Baltimore rave, a camaraderie, womanhood and feminism at their most powerful. 

Vicki's husband, Bill, shook his head and wandered back to his office as the last of the ladies left. 'Loonies', he said out loud, 'couldn't make them up'.  

'How did it go?', he asked his wife when he finally came downstairs. 

She was flushed, wide-eyed, buoyant with enthusiasm and as happy as a lark. 'Wonderful', she said, 'absolutely wonderful'. 

Another academic, Prof. Alden Wright, Chairman of the Department of Clinical Psychology at Hopkins, wrote:

The nature of true belief is born of political dementia.  While there can be a coming together of the like-minded, united around a particular cause or issue, it rarely goes past angry commitment; but when a political commonality goes viral, such as the animus against Donald Trump, and mutates, grows, and transforms into a feral epidemic, the gloves are off. There can be no stopping the rapid spread of the disease nor its mutation into something wildly uncontrollable - a mass schizophrenia.

Out and about - to Starbucks and Whole Foods - no one would suspect Vicki Barton of dementia or least of all schizophrenia.  The virus, again according to Prof. Dr. Wright, 'lies dormant and undetected until it is triggered - a gay man, an ICE officer, an offending street sign - and then it becomes full-blown, and only retreats when the sufferer is back in his or her den...' 

'Completely nuts', said another complicit husband, chatting with Bill Barton after another of Vicki's teas. 'I know women have their loose hinges - menopause is a killer - but Vicki, whoa! and so it was among the husbands who would rather put up with a bit of crazy female camaraderie than ditch it in divorce. 

A Washington Barman Tells All - Tacky Politicians Afoot In The Capitol's Playground

The Town & Country bar at the Mayflower, one of Washington's oldest, most favored, high-end hotels, was the venue for deals, trysts, and affairs for decades.  Late at night, the bar scene was especially animated - open season for overtures, offers, and connections.  

 

The bartender, 'Bill' was master of ceremonies, magician, and vaudevillian personality.  After 10pm, people went there for Bill, his antics, his legerdemain, and his ability to create an atmosphere of insider intimacy within a larger context of political anonymity - no mean feat in a town where information is power. 

Bill had been the evening barman at the Mayflower for decades and retired only when the hotel was sold and it was clear that the new ownership intended to make changes. The bar would go, or rather it would be reconfigured into something more welcoming to young aides, interns and tourists.  

It would lose the heavy oak and mahogany cachet that lent itself to a particular type of older, more established, steak-and-martinis clientele, suits and ties, worsted and English wool; and replace it with something more in tune with the times. 

Bill was contacted by a literary agent who encouraged him to write a memoir of his three decades at the Town & Country. Who better than he to tell the real story behind the headlines?  He had heard confidences, proposals, threats, and seductions all of which had some political inference, and his book would go through three printings in a month. 

 

At first Bill hesitated.  For years he had been the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil invisible man - a clown, the happy barman, the man in whom any man could confide without fear that his story would leak out onto Connecticut Avenue.

Yet the agent's offer was tempting - an advance worth more than Bill would see in five years' of emoluments and gratuities, a promise of the kind of Washington stardom that only few achieved, and a bevy of New York lawyers who would create a legal firewall around his stories.  'Give it a try', said the agent, 'and let's take it from there.'

Ah, but where to start? It was closing time, only two patrons were still at the bar, and Bill had wiped the counters clean, spiffed up the array of whiskeys and gins behind him, opened the back door for the cleaning ladies who would work until one, poured himself a brandy, and began to think about the past. 

He immediately thought of the former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer who had come here for assignations with one of Madame LaFourchette's girls but would always stop in for a dry martini before she arrived.  He was in mufti and dressed more like a Midwestern tourist than an important politician.  He lost the severe dark suit, white shirt, and tightly-knotted tie of office and became an ordinary Joe. 

 

After many late nights at the bar, Spitzer had become a regular, and like most confided in Bill.  'This is not really me, Bill', the Governor said.  'It's just that I don't have time to chase women'. 

Bill, no stranger to the trade, looked at the governor - a tightly-wound, rabbinical, obsessive to whom none of the American beauty roses that came into the Mayflower would ever give a second glance.  The Governor knew that Madame LaFourchette was his only recourse; and when the high-toned, tall, bejeweled woman caught his eye through the swinging doors of the bar, Bill smiled.  His long career at sussing out infidelity and the male ego had not failed him.  She was attractive, but still a tart - from what he now understood, a good match for the Governor. 

The Governor was a man of eclectic tastes.  If you were paying for it, you could pick and choose, and Madame LaFourchette was well known for her stable of diversity.  There were silky, dark, brooding Palestinian girls, blonde, blue-eyed Norwegians, and creamy coffee octoroons from New Orleans.  Mme. LaFourchette stopped the color palette there - none of her customers wanted black, even Southerners who were tempted. 

So, every time that the Governor took his seat at Bill's bar, a different woman would come calling. It was like his own personal harem, women of unique charm and beauty, to which he could motion and they would come to his bedchamber. 

Bill was old enough to remember the young John F Kennedy who was a frequent patron of the Town & Country.  Bill was only an apprentice in those days, but not too young to appreciate the goings on.  Kennedy was always with a beautiful woman captivated by his charm, wit, and unmistakable sexual interest.  Not a tart among them, such was the man's attractiveness.  

His brother Bobby was just a kid, and Jack's women treated him like one, tousling his hair, putting their arms around him, and giving him affectionate pecks on the cheek; but Bobby was no innocent, and before long he was in the back room of the bar entertaining the same women that his brother had. 

There was very little buggery at the Town & Country - or at least very little.  There is something about the pheromones that fill the air in such a place - almost stiflingly masculine and feminine - that gay men once they opened the door knew immediately they did not belong.  Only once or twice - perhaps when the air was thin or the weather outside damp and dreary - did Bill witness a gay flirtation.  

A well-known Congressman, closeted and strictly conservative to provide cover for his sexuality, but as queer as a three dollar bill, could not restrain himself, and after three martinis it was clear that he had intentions for the young aide sitting next to him.  The aide, impressed that such a well-known politician would pay him any mind, especially when the bar was filled with men seen on the nightly news, responded warmly. 

But when the Congressman, uncommonly drunk and irresolute crossed the line and slipped his hand down the aide's inner thigh, the aide stood up, and yelled, 'Keep your hands to yourself, you fucking faggot', and with that coup de foudre the Congressman was outed once and for all. 

'We were right’, whispered a fellow Congressman from across the aisle. 'Knew it all the time', and from that time forward the outed member lightened up on his family values routine, shifted lanes to the climate, and managed with a generous public contribution to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Iowa, to stay out of the Des Moines Independent. 

 

There was always something strange about the beautiful blonde woman who always sat by herself at a corner table of the bar reading a book.  That alone caught Bill's attention. No one came to the Town & Country to read Proust.  Her posture and attitude tended to keep potential suitors away - there is some indefinable but impermeable barrier that beautiful women can put up when they want to be left alone that men instinctively understand. 

However, the most savvy, practiced, and experienced men do not see this as indomitable, and never hesitate to at least offer some pleasant, inviting remark; and so it was that a gentleman of some obvious importance but off the radar screen of known celebrities found a way to sit with the young lady.  At first her indifference was evident - she reluctantly agreed to his overture but had no real interest - but indifference changed to diffidence and then to interest.  They shook hands, clearly intending to see each other again. 

Bill, after so many years observing the Washington scene, knew that when a man of obvious influence was anonymous, he must be in one of the clandestine services.  The CIA was particularly careful about screening their recruits for personal secrecy.  It should be enough for these men to do the nation's most important work without recognition. Because of this posture unusual for Washington, Bill immediately assumed his true profession. 

There was no way that Bill or anyone could have known that the young woman was a Russian spy.  Her English was perfectly unaccented, her mannerisms middle American and familiar. Nothing about her raised questions, doubts, or alarms. 

So when she disappeared from the Town & Country and Washington and was seen in Moscow; and when it was revealed that the gentleman in question was none other than the Deputy Director of Operations in the CIA and that he had revealed state secrets, Bill like everyone else was surprised. 

Bill, however, was pleased.  Once again the Town & Country - his bar - had been the scene of sexual intrigue.  Pillow talk in Washington was always of the highest order, and if it began over cocktails at the Mayflower, a feather in Bill's cap.  He, the chef d'orchestre, the maitre d', the master of ceremonies made it all happen.  Pheromones notwithstanding, this was his show. 

This was the stuff of the sample chapter delivered to the literary agent from Simon & Schuster, immediately approved, the advance check cut, a ghost writer assigned, and a publication date fixed. 

There were some legal glitches here and there, questions of fiction vs fact which challenged genre experts at the publishing house, and unusual delays because of health and family issues; but everyone was confident that the book would soon hit the street. 

Once Bill got going, he was a virtual fount of recollections, observations, and insights.  His stories could have filled volumes, and the ghost writer could barely keep up.  While his editor urged him on, the job of trimming the exposé was daunting.  

At the same time the Editor-in-Chief himself brought the manuscript home with him at night and read until after midnight.  It was more than a memoir, more than a tell-all.  'It couldn't be', thought the editor, but his staff had vetted what they could and it seemed that Washington was indeed this smarmy, unholy place only before alluded to. 

The book never came out.  The delays were such that Bill's insider tales were already old hat; but there were those at the publishing house who felt there was still life in the idea - a historical memoir, perhaps, the way the Washington crowd used to be before the censorious, penitential days of today. 

'Remember Wilbur Mills' chippie, Fannie Fox, the Argentine firecracker?' laughed a colleague of Bill's who came to Florida to visit.  'Now that was a real tart.  I miss the good ol' days'. 

With his advance, Bill bought that condo in Sarasota he had always wanted, and whacked away on his memoir from the balcony overlooking the Gulf.  Sipping his sundowner, he said to the passersby below, 'I am a happy man'.