Somewhere, deep down, tucked away underneath their loathing for George Bush, in a secret place where the lights of smart dinner-party conversation and clever debating-society repartee never shine, the growing hordes of America-bashers must dread the moment he leaves office.
When President Bush goes into the Texas sunset, and especially if he is replaced by an enlightened, world-embracing Democrat, their one excuse, their sole explanation for all human suffering in the world will disappear too. And they may just find that the world is not as simple as they thought it was.
Oh no, Gerard! You give them far too much credit. Bashing George Bush (and Republicans and America) is waaaaay too intellectually and morally convenient to give up without a fight! The sheer simplicity of psychological denial and displacement will undoubtedly work its incredible magic on the minds of those currently afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome, and they will merely exchange one Chimpy McHitler for another with an equally clever little evil nickname.
Why, they've even begun searching for a new object of their
Let me tell you a story that will explain how this baby works.
When I was a resident in psychiatry there was a young male patient I was consulted on, who came to the Emergency Room on a daily basis, convinced that he had Hodgkins Lymphoma. He would present with this or that symptom and demand to be worked up; and when the work-up was invariably negative would eventually go away. Eventually, the docs in the ER got tired of this and referred him to me.
Gerry was a 27 year old perrennial college graduate student. He was working on finishing a degree at one of the local universities, but kept changing his mind about his thesis topic. He had been in the biology program for almost 6 years and his doctorate was still not in sight. About a year earlier, his parents had given him an ultimatum: they would no longer financially support his studies and he was going to have to get a job if he did not finish the program within the next year. One month before the deadline, Gerry became fixated on the idea that he had Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a nasty cancer in the lymphatic system that is particularly common in young people, after he read a story about it in the news.
He literally became obsessed with the idea that he was dying of this disease and he was furious with the medical doctors because they weren't able to diagnose it. Gerry was a bright, articulate individual, and I figured it would be useful to do everything possible to rule out Hodgkins from the differential diagnosis; and so I did just that. He went through a battery of lab and x-rays; as well as consultations with cancer specialists at my behest. Then, armed with all the data I sat down cheerfully with Gerry and went over it piece by piece; showing him conclusively that there was no possibility he had an occult Hodgkin's tumor.
Gerry sat there very quietly, listening carefully. He exhibited very little throughout the explanation and would only nod almost imperceptibly as we went through the various tests. I thought he took it rather well when I told him that he no longer had to worry about dying from Hodgkin's.
"You are sure?" He asked me, when I was done. I emphatically told him I was sure. My working diagnosis had been simple anxiety grown all out of proportion into an obsession from an slightly enlarged lymph node in Gerry's neck after he had suffered from a cold. Gerry did not seem overjoyed, but he accepted my conclusion. We scheduled to meet the next week to talk about his parent's ultamatum, which I suspected was the actual source of his worries.
However, that weekend I got a call from the ER. Gerry was back. I would be glad to know, the ER Resident informed me sarcastically, that Gerry no longer believed he was dying from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was now convinced he had a rare type of thyroid cancer.
Only then did I realize the extent of Gerry's delusional system. From what I have told you, you might be able to figure out the psychological purpose that the delusion served for him. Suffice it to say, that logic and reason were unable to eliminate the delusion because as long as he focused on the details of the delusion, he didn't have to face the threat that was even more dangerous to his sense of self.
This is called displacement, and it is an unconscious mechanism that people use to avoid facing an extremely unpleasant or severely dangerous threat to their core sense of self. Like most psychological defenses, it is a form of denial.
Like Gerry, those who suffer from the peculiar delusion that the existence of George Bush accounts for all the evil in the world, will simply replace him with an equivalent delusion when he is gone.
Either that, or face a reality that threatens to overwhelm them. And there is no reason at the moment to believe they are any more ready to face reality than they were on September 12, 2001.
GONNA GET ALONG WITHOUT YA NOW
Got along without ya before I met ya
Gonna get along without ya now.
Gonna find somebody twice as mean
To be responsible someway, somehow.
You were the source of ev’ry thing gone bad
And ya caused me sorrows I never knew I had.
But when you're gone things will be the same
I'll just find someone else that I can blame!
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
Gonna get along without ya now.
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
Gonna get along without ya now.
Got along without ya before I met ya
Gonna get along without ya now.
Gonna find somebody twice as mean
To be responsible someway, somehow.
I don't wanna be frightened and lose my pride;
Without someone to blame my ass is fried.
The world is scary and makes me weep
But long as I got a chimpy mchitler, I can sleep.
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
Gonna get along without ya now.
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
Gonna get along without ya now.
Got along without ya before I met ya
Gonna get along without ya now.
Gonna find somebody twice as mean
To be responsible someway, somehow.
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