Editors note: This is the third part of a four-part letter submitted by Ray Johnson, a DeLand resident.

Many thousands have chosen unreason as a permanent way of life. Admittedly, retreat from reason appears to be from the rural areas and elected representatives in Congress who spend their evening hours watching the tube (Fox news) and the “reruns.” The crazies never realize they are insane. It is possible we are all crazier than we know.

Nowhere is the absence of reason more evident than in the political arena; madness is already upon us to a greater degree than anyone has ever imagined. Can we be saved by the judicial system? Can reason be restored?

I suspect we will always have the “deniers.” Trump and his allies are causing a violent, divisional upheaval in America and in the cause for a more democratic union. More greed and power.

In a society that has always before been essentially rational, the question that is most perplexing to me is why so many people have turned away from fact and reason? Admittedly, some of the behavior that we interpret as madness or unreason, like a belief in an “afterlife,” is considered perfectly sane and reasonable in a vast portion of the world as in most of America.

The obsession with madness manifested itself in which the madman (DJT, who suffers from a mental disease of self-importance) was celebrated as a hero and as a savior of the ills that befell the most vulnerable in society; people who felt they were not being represented and still do not feel so.

The supporters of the right-wing agenda felt that support for the alternative was more attractive than the ugly reality of a life that held no promise for a brighter future. These Americans have chosen anti-rationality as a way of life rather than use the classic process to arrive at a rationale for their beliefs and reasoning.

If reason led our society to create unprecedented strife, then reason is suspect, leaving only the alternative of unreason. A great number of people have fallen into the inescapable trap woven by the various forms of media and bombardment of never-ending useless information; they simply cannot stand up to the pressure. Reason seems to have gone mad through manipulation of consumerism, mass murders (large scale and small scale), the abuse of our environment, and the callousness of politics worldwide and in America.

Man is probably more irrational than others in the animal kingdom. Violence, murder, war, and other forms of aggression are rare in most of the animal world. Thus, we can conclude that man is basically an irrational being and therefore it is the fault of the beast within us. Human wickedness is perhaps due to ignorance and greed. The right wing has cultivated irrationality and the pursuit of political power for its own sake; totalitarian nightmare. Trump supporters have become subservient to the Party beyond the bounds of common sense. The Republican Party is more intent on crushing the opposition (a la Rep. Jim Jordan and others in the rogues’ gallery of 21st century of Americans) rather than creating a more perfect union.

Ray Johnson

DeLand