McDonald: Denial of reality — Today’s American mental illness

I recently wrote about the bombshell report from the Cochrane Library that laid to rest any possible rationale for claiming that the use of masks prevents the transmission of respiratory viruses. Although all informed Americans have known this since mid-2020, there continues to be an inexplicably large number of dunces and fools in this country who cannot accept simple reality and who cling to the belief that face diapers will protect them from not only common colds but also traffic accidents, armed robbery, and even natural disasters. Witness them to this day practicing their religion while jogging, biking, driving, and walking outdoors.

For the first time, one of the most prominent left-wing “news” outlets, The New York Times, actually published a scathing indictment of the religion of maskism, citing the Cochrane Library report. The piece by Bret Stephens, titled The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned? confronts head-on what is essentially an expression of fanaticism by a truly crazed segment of American society that includes many of the most highly educated and financially successful among us. His conclusion is clear: Wearing masks has helped no one and has only caused harm.

Stephens must have struck a chord among NYT subscribers. In only 24 hours, they left close to 4,000 comments. These comments reveal a psychopathy that extends far beyond simple ignorance or stupidity. For example, the following received more than 3,000 “likes” on the site: “You might accurately have said that the mask mandates did not work because there was insufficient voluntary compliance and no effective enforcement.” Or how about this one that received nearly 4,000 likes: “I read the data / study last week. It basically concluded that masking didn’t work because people didn’t mask properly, or consistently.” In other words, masks failed because Americans who chose not to wear them religiously weren’t punished enough. Ask a leftist why socialism has consistently failed in every nation where it has been tried, and you will always get the same reply: It was never fully and properly implemented.

The reason the responses to Stephens’s article are important is that they reveal an entrenched mental illness in American society, specifically among the urban coastal elites and the highly educated, those who wield the most influence in our government, media, schools and universities, and corporations. This illness expresses itself at the most basic level as a denial of reality. Those who suffer from it are not only unreachable but also dangerous, far more dangerous than the homeless schizophrenic living in a tent beneath the freeway overpass. He can only harm those who happen to walk past him. The extent of his influence is limited to the reach of his stench and the knife he carries in his pants. Subscribers to the NYT and others like them do not confine themselves to dark alleys and public parks—they participate actively and vocally in shaping public policy, medical decision-making, and school curricula. Many (thankfully fewer today compared to a decade ago due to their contempt for human life) are still raising children. I saw a family of five enter a woke bookstore in LA over the weekend. Prominently displayed in the window were several children’s books on queer theory and transgender affirmation. The parents had all three of their kids’ faces covered with diapers. Were this bookstore and its customers to be replaced by a vacant lot filled with heroin users, I would consider it an improvement to the community.

The gap between the sane and the insane today in America is unbridgeable. As the Stephens article reveals, even overwhelming truth will not dislodge this group from its psychotic perch. If we cannot even find the strength to clear our streets of the overtly mentally ill and place them in involuntary confinement for psychiatric treatment, how will we ever successfully deal with the covertly mentally ill, who exert a far more destructive influence on our society today?
 

Mark McDonald, M.D.
Psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis and Freedom From Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery