At the impeachment hearings, Republican paranoia was on full display.
From the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, symptoms for paranoid personality disorder:
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suspicious; unfounded suspicions; believes others are plotting against him/her
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preoccupied with unsupported doubts about friends or associates
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reluctant to confide in others due to a fear that information may be used against him/her
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reads negative meanings into innocuous remarks
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bears grudges
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perceives attacks on his/her reputation that are not clear to others, and is quick to counterattack
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maintains unfounded suspicions regarding the fidelity of a spouse or significant other
Almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, to put an R next to your name and run for office successfully requires your exhibiting symptoms of PPD to some degree in order to get the MAGAts pumped up and give you a chance to get elected. Once elected, you may be required to demonstrate that your disease has progressed to more and more serious levels in order to stay in office by yelling, screaming, spitting, pointing and jabbing with your finger, stomping, storming out, or by staring, shaking the head, rolling the eyes, flashing crooked, sarcastic smiles. Your statements must be unintelligible, incoherent, and completely irrelevant to anything real; the most important thing is to say whatever you’re going to say very fast and very loudly, jumbling whatever words you use together in a torrent of nonsense; or, if you’re on the serial killer end of the scale instead of the raving lunatic end, you engage in a kind of black magic, uttering strings of phrases that trigger fellow paranoiacs, or you just make threatening insults.
The twin vibrations of fear and hate generated by Republican paranoia are extremely disturbing to all who do not suffer from PPD--a lot of people, including me, could not bear to listen to or watch the hearings when Republicans were on, just as many people cannot bear to hear the PABOTUS speak or to see his image. It’s literally nightmarish. Yet, there sat Fiona Hill, in that room, with those Republicans, unafraid, unflappable, and somehow present no matter what shit was thrown at her. She was completely free of paranoia, and it was so terrifying to the Republicans that most of them just left the room. I think there’s a lesson there for all of us in how to deal with these monsters.