RightWing Dementia (RWD), sometimes known as dementia Bushiana, is the name given to a mass outbreak of insanity in the United States in the first decade of the 21st Century. RWD is now believed to have been the root cause of the collapse of that country in early 2009 after the loss by RightWing forces of the election of 2008 and their subsequent rampage...

RWD, like other outbreaks of mass hysteria, is characterized by a broad spectrum of psychological disorders present simultaneously in its sufferers, induced, we now understand, through memetic infection by extreme Conservative ideology. Unlike the psychological disorders suffered by individuals in isolation, RWD and other mass hysterias combine multiple pathologies and the patient oscillates wildly between various modes of psychopathology....

One common cycle, or subsyndrome, involves a failure of the time-binding faculty, and has been characterized as a pendulum swing between an Alzheimer's like condition, evidenced by an inability to perceive any event in any context whatsoever; and its polar opposite, perception of all historical events at once as if occuring simultaneously. The exact mechanism is still somewhat uncertain. Some scientists believe that the sufferer's sense of time and the sequence of events becomes badly distorted and that this subsyndrom is a consequence of physical damage to the brain. A leading countervailing theory notes that subsyndrome is almost always associated with a sense of outrage from which RWD suffers seem, perversely, to derive great satisfaction, because at either extreme events can be ascribed to an external malevolent force with no further explanation; and that the pursuit of that gratification is in fact...

Recovery of a computer storage device in 2043 from the rubble of an area once known as Silicon Valley has provided an illustrative example of RWD time-binding failure, in the form of a written dialogue between an individual identifed only as "TB" and an interlocutor identified only as "Robert". In this exchange, TB writes about the capture of British sailors by Iranian forces in disputed waters first as if it had happened unexpectedly and for no apparent reason (seemingly unaware of the civil war engendered in neighboring Iraq by the RightWing demagogue George Bush's invasion of that country and previous six years of attempts to provoke war with Iran); then, in a later missive, asserts that the incident was caused by the actions of one Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran twenty years prior [NB: TB appears to be referring to a historical figure of 30 years prior, not 20, but confusion about the duration of time is characteristic of RWD time-binding breakdown]. Consistent with the association of outrage described early, TB seems to take great pleasure in his rage, and finds a gratifying focus for it in being able to portray Iran as simply inexplicably evil and malevelant. This example illustrates the multiple "payoffs" of RWD for sufferers. First, TB avoids the difficult work of understanding the context of the event and the consequent risk of finding that his prejudices and simplistic assumptions are invalidated by understanding of the background of the event. Second, denial of any real cause for the event effectively insulates his movement's leader Bush from any responsibility whatsoever in the incident, and thus preserves intact the structure of the RWD subsyndrome authoritarian conservativism (see chapter 4)....

In summary, RWD has proven itself to be not only one of the most dangerous manifestations of mass psychosis, but, because of the interlocking and self-reinforcing natural of its multiple subsyndromes, virtually impossible to cure. Any attempt to address one subsyndrome is easily evaded by retreat to another subsyndrome, and frustrated observers of the time were prone to describe RWD patients as "dodging and weaving" and "slippery bastards, ain't they?".