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Opinion/Guest View: Reality exists. We can’t scream it away

David Hirsch
Portsmouth Herald

Years ago, elsewhere, I was appointed to represent a woman I will call Mrs. Smith in a child welfare case. I was new to town. All the other lawyers grinned at me when I got my appointment.

You couldn’t help knowing Mrs. Smith if you worked in that court. The state had alleged unfitness and had taken custody of her children. She began and ended every hearing by screaming “You’re stealing my babies!” whereupon she would be removed from the courtroom. Then she would bang on the courtroom door, still screaming.

In her quieter moments, Mrs. Smith told me she was the victim of a conspiracy.

“They’re doing this because they can’t stand what a wonderful, caring mother I am,” she explained.

Part of my job for Mrs. Smith was representing her in court. The other part was giving her advice. I suggested her presentation in court wasn’t helping. I suggested ameliorating some of the problems the state had alleged in her parenting.

This made me part of the conspiracy. She screamed at me and fired me, and a tolerant judge appointed another lawyer in my place.

The psychologists claimed Mrs. Smith was delusional. I’ve wondered, over the years, if they were right. I have represented my share of delusional clients: people who thought they were being watched by Venusians or the CIA, or who ran naked in the streets wielding butcher knives because the voices told them to.

But is self-serving conspiracy claim – a self-willed belief in what isn’t true – a genuine delusion?

I’ve thought of Mrs. Smith while reading the newspapers lately. Q-Anon says Democrats are running a pedophile ring out of a pizza shop. Government officials who criticize Trump are part of the Deep State. Black Lives Matter protestors are the dupes of black-clad anarchists under the sway of Antifa, which also set the fires in Oregon in hopes of destroying America.

Dr. Fauci and the CDC are lying about COVID-19. Climate change warnings are the invention of socialists who hate America. Recordings of Trump saying horrible things? Fake news! And my favorite: former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann telling us that social unrest is fomented by transsexual Black Marxists.

Meanwhile, the West Coast continues to burn, the Gulf Coast continues to flood, Black people continue to get shot by cops, and COVID continues to rage through our communities.

Has everybody gotten delusional? It depends, as with Mrs. Smith, on your definition of delusions.

This past weekend was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. One of our goals on Rosh Hashanah is t’shuvah, usually translated as repentance. Our rabbi, here in Portsmouth, reminded us that repentance requires acknowledging our faults. It’s hard to do.

We don’t need to acknowledge fault or change our behavior if climate change is a conspiracy promoted by evil scientists. Same with protestors challenging systemic racism, journalists reporting politicians’ lies, activists promoting voting by mail, and even doctors pleading with us to endure the slight discomfort of wearing a mask during the pandemic. Like Mrs. Smith, we can rage at anybody who tells us what we don’t want to hear; no self-examination required! They’re all part of the conspiracy!

We used to joke in the lawyer’s lounge about staging a reunion of co-conspirators in Mrs. Smith’s case at the local stadium, the only place large enough to fit all of us.

But how big a hall would we need for the Mrs. Smith-ism that’s running wild in American politics?

The problems are real, folks. It will take hard, uncomfortable work to fix them, and hard, uncomfortable work is never popular. But reality exists, and we can’t scream it away

David Hirsch of Portsmouth is a criminal defense lawyer and former public defender. The views expressed are those of the writer.