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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Post Election Stress Trauma (PEST)

  Michael White
PEST is a serious ailment with far reaching deleterious effects. It is amazing how many American politicians contract it, and how strangely they behave after they do. Problem is that the antidotes are severely limited, or you have to take a plethora of equally harmful medicines to counteract the side effects. It’s like the drugs advertised on TV which are acknowledged to have many more harmful side effects than the disease they are intended to cure. It is difficult to believe that people still buy some of these drugs after the manufacturers’ disclaimers!
 
The most troublesome symptoms of PEST are:
 
  • Prolonged incredulity at the thought of having been severely defeated;
  • Horror that the less important elements of a decadent society could so easily dislodge your dreams and privileges;
  • Merciless scape-goating;
  • A sense of the slipping away of the benefits of entitlement
  • Anger that a civilized society (so-called) no longer supports belief in the divine rights of kings;
  • Completely irrational animosity directed at the victor and at every one who has denied you your place in History;
  • A strong proclivity to conspiracy theories, the more outlandish the better;
  • Wild, improbable and impetuous pronouncements about possible causes of failure;
  • Pathological hatred of the incumbent barrier to ones progress in life, particularly if he is of a lower caste (sub-human even);
  • Deep depression from losing the one and final chance to be the leader of the free world; this is particularly heart-wrenching to the aging super-ambitious and self- adulating individual, and could possibly lead to suicidal impulses;
  • Jettisoning of all feelings of patriotism, matched by a paralyzing desire to secede;
  • A renewed determination to destroy rather than perfect the “Union”;
  • Unquenchable fear of a future not under one’s direct influence and control;
  • Obsessive, immobilizing fear that a whole race may be lost forever;
  • Rejection of any notion that God is not on your side;
  • Delusional comfort in the promise of life in an alternate universe;
  • An odd mix of chagrin and guilt for the ills imposed on others;
  • Horror at the discovery that money cannot buy everything, even in the most materialistic of all generations;
   The terrible disorder of PEST can be severely compounded if the victim has already previously suffered from unresolved PTSD, a closely aligned twin disorder. The case of John McCain comes readily to mind. Dear John, a much vaunted war hero, shows such wild swings of fancy that listening to his outbursts makes the head spin; from “bomb, bomb. bomb Iran”, to the misguided or fake suspension of his campaign ostensibly to resolve a national crisis; to the utterly ludicrous and incredible selection of Sarah Palin to be a running (spelt ruining) mate for the presidency; to the desertion of a wife at her sickbed; to a totally devilish demonization of the wonderful Susan Rice- this gentleman has displayed the classic symptoms of PEST-PTSD. After being defeated in the election he has not ceased for four years, campaigning against the winner .
    The patient under PEST may have periodic lucid moments; but such episodes are rare; the lamentable fact is that the patient may never recover and may become so delusional that he thinks the next round will be better, as he grabs on to straws (in the human form of Adelson, the Kochs, and, of course, Carl the Rover).
  A dire situation becomes immeasurably worse when a large number of people suffering from PEST control an important arm of Government. They can bind themselves together in the resolve to destroy the nation’s and the world’s economy rather than lose their power and privilege and the admiration and largesse of the economic parasites who support them.
Maybe a Drug corporation on Wall Street will find a cure for some of the more mildly diseased before we fall into the abyss.