Sick With Hate
The Capital Times of Madison, Wis., has yet another piece on the "Prozac progressives" (thanks to reader Duane Speight for the coinage), Democrats who are suffering psychological ailments in the wake of President Bush's re-election. If you read deep enough, you find an actual insight:
Ron Johnson, a psychologist at Midlands Psychological Associates in Lodi, is still seeing the aftermath and classifies some of it as clinical depression. . . .
Johnson has a couple of theories. One has to do with how bitterly divided the country is. Another has to do with the number of people who were voting against a candidate instead of in favor of one.
"So what we have is this number of people who don't have something to put their passions into. There were a number of people who liked Kerry, but there were more people voting for Kerry who were voting against Bush. And when you are voting against something, when you are against something, it's not a very positive flavor."
Down in Florida, the Boca Raton News has an interview with a 44-year-old woman named Karen, "a divorced mother of one who didn't want her last name in print," who says psychologist Douglas Schooler has cured her of her postelection disorder:
"I was so invested emotionally, watching the debates, and was very disturbed whenever I heard a Marine has been killed. I thought Bush's actions were war crimes. But I'm sleeping again since the therapy and have felt better ever since. I don't know what will happen now, but I'm going to take it day by day and see what happens."
The paper adds that Karen, "a Schooler client for seven years, dating back to her divorce," now realizes, as the paper puts it, that "it had been unhealthy for her to expect Kerry to win." |
