america's mass psychosis

It is almost impossible to find language strong enough to describe and condemn the GOP’s lunatic response to tRUMP’s loss in the most secure election in US history. Here is a recent GOP response to the righteous rejection of their deadly, vile, obscene, wicked, ungodly, and blasphemous candidate, the most powerful and dangerous anti-Christ since the 20th century’s Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
 

“I sent out an SOS because, frankly, I need help in sorting out this atmospheric craziness that is going on. The Arizona Republican Party posted several inflammatory tweets early Tuesday morning amid President Donald Trump’s corrupt efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. The party’s official, official Twitter account retweeted a report from a pro-Trump ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer declaring, quote, ‘I’m willing to give my life for this fight.’  He is. The GOP account responded: ‘Are you?’ asking all of the people who read this official site.
 
“About an hour later, the party posted a clip from the action movie RAMBO in which the titular character threatens to shoot another character in the face with an arrow. The state’s GOP account quoted Rambo’s line in the clip, quote, ‘This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.’ In other words, are you people willing to risk your life to change these election results? Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”[1]
 
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We will offer Amlici and Amalickiah, of Book of Mormon fame, as parallels to what we are seeing “in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country.” But before doing so, we should just take a moment to answer Mr. Moyer’s question, “Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”
 
Mass psychosis.
 
That’s what’s happening to us. Psychosis is, by definition, “losing touch with reality.” The illness is often brought on by trauma. Psychosis at such a mass level is not easily treated. There is no medication for it. So, I have no expectation that this mass psychosis will be healed any time soon. Indeed, this psychosis is so powerful that it is more akin to demon possession than illness. Unfortunately, I lack the faith and power to cast out evil spirits. I suspect Joe Biden, for all his hope to reverse our national psychosis, lacks the power as well. But we are in desperate need of an exorcist. Otherwise, we may find ourselves suffering the same insults from America’s massive psychotic infatuation with tRUMP that the Nephites suffered as a result of their mass psychotic infatuation with Amlici and Amalickiah.
 
So, first to Amlici. Amlici is described as “a very cunning man,” “a wise man as to the wisdom of the world.” He “had, by his cunning, drawn away much people after him; even so much that they began to be very powerful; and they began to endeavor to establish Amlici to be a king over the people.”[2] When the “voice of the people came against Amlici, he “did stir up those who were in his favor to anger against those who were not in his favor.” Amlici “commanded them that they should take up arms against their brethren; and this he did that he might subject them to him.”[3] Unable to check this coup, Nephite society endured a deadly and destructive civil war that only ended with Amlici’s death.
 
Amalickiah, who arose a little more than a dozen years after Amlici, is described in terms very similar to those of Amlici. He was “a large and a strong man” who was “a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words.”[4] “By his fraud, [he] gained the hearts of the people” and “led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly.” Tragically, the deceived included “many in the church who believe in the flattering words of Amalickiah.”[5]
 
His followers are described as growing “proud, being lifted up in their hearts.” Many of them were “lower judges [politicians] of the land, and they were seeking for power.”[6] Like Amlici, Amalickiah and his followers sought to overthrow the will of the people and establish a monarchy with Amalickiah as king. When this failed by peaceful means, they resorted to violent means “to destroy the foundation of liberty.”[7] This rebellion result in war that lasted some twenty years.
 
Thus, editorializes the Book of Mormon chronicler, “we also see the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men.”[8]
 
This was true of Amalickiah. It was true of Amlici. And it is true of America’s Caligula, so named because of his madness. One hopes and prays that we will not have to work our way out of our mass psychosis or “great wickedness” by the same violent means as the Nephites. But the sort of GOP messaging as that found at the beginning of this Mad State does not portent a happy future. One hopes that an even better parallel between Nephite and American societies is not to be found later in the Book of Mormon.
 
But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance  because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin… and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them….”[9]


[1] “Bill Moyers discusses what Trump will do next as Biden’s victory drives him barking mad,” rawstory.com
[2] Alma 2.1-2
[3] Alma 2.7-10
[4] Alma 46.4, 10
[5] See Alma 47.30; 46.7, 10
[6] See Alma 45.24 and 46.4
[7] Alma 46.10
[8] Alma 46.9
[9] Mormon 2.13, 15