People who know Gen. Michael Flynn think he has lost his mind. Some trace the origin of his insanity to his association with Trump. Others say his irrational behavior was evident when he was the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under Obama. That post should have been the culmination of a successful career. Instead, he was fired a year before his official retirement date.
Flynn said his ousting was because Obama refused to listen to his warnings of the threat of Islamic terror. But a private email, sent by Colin Powell and subsequently leaked, revealed his dismissal was because he was "abusive with staff, didn't listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc. He has been and was right-wing nutty every [sic] since." No one supports Flynn’s version of events.
Flynn's actions have cast doubt on his mental stability. At the DIA, he would become fixated on an idea and demand that analysts find evidence to support it. These became known as Flynn Facts. Easily disprovable falsehoods that he would continue to repeat. For example, saying that Iran had killed more Americans than al-Qaeda. And he notoriously led a chant of, “Lock her up” at the RNC in 2016.
Trump’s transition team, led by Chris Christie, viewed Flynn as a “loose cannon”. They opposed Flynn serving as National Security Adviser or anything else. Trump ignored the advice and installed him as NSA anyway. He lasted 21 days before resigning. He then pleaded guilty for "willfully and knowingly" lying to the FBI about conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the US.
Then he went full-on crazy. In 2020, he posted a video of himself taking an oath associated with QAnon. He claimed that Italy used military satellites to switch votes from Trump to Biden, that an evil global elite perpetrated the COVID-19 hoax, and that the COVID vaccine included mind-control microchips.
He pled the Fifth rather than answer the question from Liz Cheney, “General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America?” How does a sane person think answering that question exposes you to criminal liability?
People have noticed. Especially damning are the remarks by his one-time commander, Lt. Gen Stanley McChrystal. He, when asked to comment on Flynn’s mental condition, replied,
“Out of the respect for our service together, and years of closer friendship, I’m now just going to stay silent.”
And Lt. General Keith Kellogg, also once Flynn’s commander and later a White House colleague wrote,
“I have known Mike Flynn for many years going back to our days as Paratroopers in the 82d Airborne Division. As such, he remains a friend and [I] prefer to not talk about him.”
These similar sentiments are easily translatable. “What you are saying is true, but having known and worked with the guy for years, we are not going to throw him under the bus.”
Flynn’s descent into madness is not unique. It is a journey taken by many Americans. Let me give you an example.
When I first met my father-in-law, he was a well-educated professional man who smoked weed and was liberally apolitical. He lived in Hawaii. When not working, he would sail. And in the evenings, he hung out on the lanai with his mates. In the vernacular of the time, he was a ‘cool dude’. He is now a right-wing zealot. Not quite a MAGA as far as I can tell — he does not seem to hold Trump in high regard. But he checks every other deluded box on the conservative checklist. What happened? I cannot tell you. I am neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist.
But I am an observer. And he is by no means alone.
I call the condition Demented Aging White Guy Syndrome (DAWGS). It can happen to anyone - but the typical victim is its eponymous demographic. These people did not have strong political opinions and, if forced to, would have proclaimed themselves between center-left and center-right. But then something happened, and they became full-throated RW nuts.
The symptoms are consistent. They only watch Fox News — or for the extreme crazies, OANN and Newsmax. They forward chain emails with fact-free claims that an iota of scrutiny would prove nonsensical. How will the UN force the US to change its land-use policies? With the Blue Helmets? How are they going to beat the world’s most powerful military? Sufferers inhabitant the paranoid corners of social media, looking for ‘proof’ of their delusions.
They warn you of feminazis, the LGBTQ+ agenda, teachers encouraging children to change their sex, virulent diseases spread by homicidal ‘illegals’, and gun-stripping Democratic politicians using BLM to confiscate their Bibles and burn down their churches while FEMA builds reeducation camps in abandoned Walmarts.
To a man (and woman) they parrot the same nonsense with no variation in their language. The robotic consistency makes them sound like a cult. Or Star Trek’s Borg. I have yet to hear one offer an original thought.
Flynn is in on this act. Speakers on his “Great ReAwkening” tour claim forces loyal to Satan steal political power in rigged elections. That there is a global conspiracy masterminded by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, and Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli public intellectual. And that some shadowy group manufactured the COVID pandemic as an excuse to mandate dangerous vaccines, which may turn people into “transhumans”.
Flynn himself has referred to “adrenochrome”. A drug that QAnon claims cannibalistic global elites harvest by torturing children, which they then inject to stay healthy and young.
And this guy is on the Trump shortlist for VP in 2024.
A lot of MAGAs are DAWGs sufferers. Rudy Giuliani has notoriously lost the plot. Nikki Halley went from sobriety to wherever she is now. Elon Musk has gone from liberal entrepreneur to sniggering conservative rock thrower. Politicians like Lindsey Graham used to be at the 'sensible’ end of the conservative political spectrum before genuflecting. (Of course, there is no longer a sensible end.)
J.D. Vance threatened to vote for Hillary over Trump in 2016. Now he is kissing the ring. The ex-liberal playwright David Mamet is now a full-blown MAGA. Keri Lake, now a dedicated Trump acolyte, was once a registered Democrat who supported Kerry and Obama. The list is long.
And given their druthers, these people will drag America into the dark, mephitic sewer where they live.