'Shared psychosis': Mental health expert dissects Trump voters' unwavering support that 'defies rationality'

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, keeps mentioning the failed campaign to vaccinate Americans against the AIDS virus as an example of the pitfalls of healthcare mandates.

Except the AIDS vaccine doesn't exist. And there sure wasn't a failed campaign to mandate it.

He made the comments most recently on an episode of the right-wing commentator Erick Erickson's podcast, emphasizing that as a result of his knowledge of the nonexistent AIDS vaccine, he believes that education is a more effective tool than mandates.

"That is basically how the AIDS vaccine worked. People wouldn't take it early on because it was mandated, they started educating people and now it is doing a lot of good out there," Kemp told Erickson. "Same scenario, different year that we are dealing with right now."

A fact check from Atlanta TV station 11 Alive rated Kemp's claims "false" — and noted that the governor has made similar comments about AIDS vaccines at least two other times over the past year.

When reached for comment by the station, Kemp's office said he meant to mention the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine. But even this statement raises eyebrows — the HPV vaccine is also mandated in a number of states to attend public schools (among other inoculations), a campaign that has been largely effective in getting school-age children vaccinated, 11 Alive reported.

The governor has been a vocal opponent of recent public health efforts to tamp down on the spread of COVID-19. Kemp has repeatedly said that he will never sign off on mask or vaccine mandates while in office, drawing the criticism of public health experts.

In fact, the state's public health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, even had her lawyer write up a formal letter last year stating that she thought the governor's plans to reopen live entertainment venues was a bad idea, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It ultimately did not stop Kemp from doing so.

"It's one thing to say you're following the science; it's another thing to shoehorn the science into what you want it to be," Amber Schmidtke, a public health researcher who taught at Mercer University's medical school in Macon, Georgia, told the paper. "A lot of people were hurt, and a lot of people died when they didn't need to."

Kemp acknowledged the difficulty of his decisions in a press conference during the brouhaha, saying: "We had to make some very tough choices during extraordinary times, and there is no playbook for this."

"Looking back one year, every day is a reminder of the things that we went through, the tough decisions that we made."

He's also been a supporter of former President Donald Trump — but earned a very public bout of anger from the ex-commander-in-chief when he resisted Trump's attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.

Since then, however, Kemp has pushed voting laws that not only restrict access to the ballot for many Georgians but also allow state officials to stage hostile takeovers of local election boards — raising concerns about Republican efforts to subvert future elections.

Addressing a much smaller crowd than the thousands of Trump supporters who streamed to the US Capitol on Jan. 6, Matt Braynard, the little-known political consultant behind the "Justice for J6" rally, deflected against far-right detractors whose warnings about federal entrapment likely dampened turnout for the event.

"This is what terrifies them — a peaceful assembly of the America First right," Braynard thundered.

Just after the event concluded around 1:15 p.m., police in riot gear, including officers from the Alexandria Police Department equipped with assault-style rifles, moved into place in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

Braynard and other speakers repeatedly disavowed the most extreme violence of the Capitol assault, while attempting to repackage the attempted insurrection as a respectable political movement.

"The reaction that we saw on January 6^th, it was stupid, it was wrong," Braynard said. He went on to urge attendees to "work within the law, work peaceably. Do not give up on the Constitution. Do not give up on our country. Do not give up on voting."

Murmurs from the crowd — "they're all useless" in reference to elected officials, "do your jobs" and "communists" directed at the assembled media — showed Braynard's appeal for political engagement over extremism was received with skepticism.

"This is the beginning of the America First right taking over community organizing in this country," Braynard said, making an appeal for volunteers for his organization Look Ahead America.

His attempt to frame support for the insurrectionists as a nonpartisan issue also hit a snag: During a slide show intended to support his argument that the Jan. 6 defendants have received disparate treatment in the US court system, Braynard tried to shush supporters when they booed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and cheered for Jacob Chansley, the so-called "QAnon Shaman."

Matt Braynard at "Justice for J6" rally www.youtube.com

With Braynard discouraging signs and clothing promoting Trump — no "Make America Great Again" flags — rally attendees displayed mostly American flags and an occasional Three Percenter militia flag. One man wore a custom-made neon green T-shirt that said "China Joe Biden, Traitor-in-Chief" on the front and "Dems+Media, Dangerous to Freedom" on the back. Another man wore a T-shirt that refashioned the FBI's acronym as "Federal Bureau of Insurrections" and hat displaying the outline of an AR-15 and the words "Pedophile Hunter."

The restraint on overt displays of support for Trump allowed critics of the rally to infiltrate the designated site.

Eric Lamar of Washington, DC walked in front of a scrum of journalists with a handwritten sign reading, "Support our police," as they were snapping shots of volunteers before the start of the event.

"I'm here supporting the Capitol Police who were brutally attacked," he said. "The people who attacked the Capitol are domestic terrorists. I define terrorism as knowingly entering an area under attack. When you see people viciously attacking police, hitting them with batons and spears and spraying them with bear mace — you are engaging in a violent attack. You can't come back and say you didn't know what you were getting into."

Between the speakers' repeatedly disavowals of violence and claims that the Jan. 6 defendants are being treated differently than other people in the United States who experience the criminal justice system, it was hard to pinpoint their specific grievance.

A woman named "Kelly," who was introduced as the girlfriend of Jonathan Mellis, said her significant other is being held in solitary confinement in the DC jail. Mellis is accused of striking officers at the US Capitol with a stick on Jan. 6, and deliberately aiming for the unprotected area of their necks between their helmets and body armor.

"Last night for dinner they were served four pieces of white bread, a cookie and a packet of tartar sauce," Kelly said. "According to them, that's a nutritious meal, and they've violated their own rulebook on multiple occasions, and so I think America needs to become very well-versed in the treatment of these men. It's human rights that we're talking about, and it's completely nonpartisan."

Mellis faces 10 separate charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding; assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, entering and remaining in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; impeding ingress and egress in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon; and an act of violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

Braynard disavowed the conduct at the rally without mentioning Mellis or any other defendants accused of violent crimes by name.

"These guys are trying to portray us as standing up for killers and people who assaulted police officers," Braynard said, gesturing towards a throng of reporters assembled near the front of the crowd. "We hate that. We'd never do that. Anybody who's ever done anything like that does not belong in this movement. We condemn it. We condemn it. We condemn it."

Cara Castronuova, the co-host of the rally introduced Jeff Zink as "the father of one of the political detainees." Contrary to Castronuova's description, Jeff Zink's son, Ryan Zink, was released from jail in mid-March, less than six weeks after his arrest.

Zink filmed himself inside the Capitol, and allegedly told a friend in a private Facebook message: "Broke down the doors pushed Congress out of session I took two flash bangs I'm ok I'll be posting pictures in a little bit when we get back I'm hurt but we accomplished the job."

"And I can't imagine," Castronuova said, "what it would feel like to be a parent, and have a child in prison right now being held in solitary confinement with no bail thinking that he brought this kid up in America where there's a Constitution and there's due process, and now your son or your daughter is being held in prison with no bail indefinitely."

Zink said despite the fact that he was with his son the entire time on Jan. 6, the FBI cleared him of wrongdoing after interviewing him for an hour and a half. When the FBI came to speak to his son, the elder Zink said, he "had his door kicked in by 15 FBI agents, flash-banged him and his dog, and put him on the floor in handcuffs and dragged him out of his house."

The affidavit supporting Ryan Zink's arrest alleges that in a Facebook comment made the day after the assault on the Capitol, he said, "They are trying to charge us with sedition they will have to kill me I'm not coming quietly."

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), the one member of Congress announced as a speaker for the rally, did not show up.

Joe Kent, a retired Army Ranger and Special Forces member who is challenging Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), was one of two congressional candidates who spoke.

Kent's speech highlighted a sense of solidarity with other veterans, who are overrepresented among the Jan. 6 defendants, and grievance against elected officials who sent them to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"When I was serving this country, the thing that I had in common with those I went to war with is we're all Americans," Kent said. "Our political leaders, they didn't think twice about sending us off on useless, endless wars that were of no gain. But all of us joined, all of us fought, many of us died, many of still carry the scars from war for one reason: We believe in this country. We believe in that flag. We believe in everything that it stands for. And when there is an injustice done to any of our brothers and sisters, our fellow citizens, when their constitutional rights are taken, if we do not speak out against that, we are guilty of standing by and watching those rights erode."

Braynard tried to make the case that those who went inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 — which he called "stupid" — are being treated differently than liberal activists who committed civil disobedience to disrupt the Senate hearings to Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.

"They stormed the hearings, they were arrested, bailed out, and went back into the same thing that day, over and over again," as a photo of Medea Benjamin of Code Pink was displayed on a large screen.

Benjamin was in the crowd on Saturday about 25 feet away from the podium where Braynard was speaking.

"That was me!" she said.

Benjamin told Raw Story that when she witnessed the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 she couldn't believe that hundreds of people were not arrested that day.

"For them to hold a rally and say that those people are political prisoners and they shouldn't face the consequences for what they did is totally wrong," she said. "I've been protesting in this Capitol for 20 years, and if I go in and hold a sign I'll get arrested. I have been to jail many, many times, and I understand when I am strong in my beliefs and I take an action, I have to be responsible for that. And these people were violent, they attacked police officers, they destroyed government property. They attempted treason. They have to pay the consequences."

"We as a people have to stand up against fascism and say we won't allow that," Benjamin continued. "I see this as part of a much larger picture of the voter suppression that's going on in this country, the attempts to take away rights that have been going on for the last 20 years with the Patriot Act until today, and I think we have to stand up and say that we will not allow fascism, we will not allow voter suppression, we will not allow white nationalism to take over this country."

Police in riot gear stand guard at the Capitol Reflecting Pool.Jordan Green

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the focus of a New York Times editorial published online on Saturday.

The editorial is titled, "Joe Manchin Got the Voting Bill He Wanted. Time to Pass It."

"Far too many Republicans are players in a cynical pantomime: They say that the new voting restrictions being passed across the nation are designed solely to thwart widespread voting fraud, when the reality is that widespread fraud does not exist and the new restrictions' purpose is to frustrate and disadvantage voters who lean Democratic — especially minority, young and lower-income voters. Are Democrats going to do a darn thing about it?" the newspaper wondered.

The newspaper noted new legislation, The Freedom to Vote Act, that was introduced on Tuesday.

"Merits aside, the new bill's prospects are shaky at best. To avoid death by filibuster, it needs the support of all 50 Democrats plus 10 Republicans. Absent that, Democrats will face a hard choice: Let this crucial legislation die or eliminate the legislative filibuster in order to pass the bill on a party-line vote," the newspaper noted.

The newspaper did not think Manchin can round up ten GOP votes for the bill.

"No one expects Mr. Manchin's gambit to succeed. But if his earnest outreach to Republicans fails, where does the senator go from there? Will he simply shrug and sacrifice voting rights on the altar of bipartisanship? Will he bow to a minority party pursuing antidemocratic measures to advance its partisan fortunes?" the newspaper wondered. "Bipartisanship can be a means to an end. But when voting rights are being ratcheted backward by one party, bipartisanship can't be an excuse for inaction."

The newspaper said it is time for President Joe Biden to act, saying it should be the top priority.

"Now, Mr. President, is the time to act boldly. Make those calls. Set up those Oval Office chats with Mr. Manchin and any other Democrats who might still need persuading. Bring all the powers of persuasion and the weight of the office to bear on this issue before further damage is done," The Times argued. "Having lost the White House and the Senate last year, Republicans appear intent on rigging the game in their favor before the midterms. Protecting the integrity of America's electoral system and the voting rights of its citizens should be priority No. 1 — not because it helps Democrats, but because it helps preserve democracy."

Read the full editorial.