fantasies that bite

I hear people referring to the Repubs as "The party of no," but prefer to think of them as the party of delusion, unreality, hallucination, and fantasy.

What really brought this home to me was Romney's reaction to losing -- it completely blind-sided him. It was easy to see in that reaction that the guy actually believed victory was his. He was still repeating "We're winning, we're winning" when the piano fell on him.

Does this mean that Republicans will now look at their own behavior, and admit they've been trying to function from a place of unreality and delusion? No, it does not.

After all, these are people who sincerely believe that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by con artists whose only purpose is to shake down honest business people for more money.

It must be hard to live in Los Angeles and believe such claptrap, but I'm sure there are some who manage, possibly by wearing blinders, sunglasses, and oxygen masks, folding their arms, and saying "The air is not foul, and I'm not here."

The real problem with such behavior is that living in a hallucination may be comforting for a while, but it does nothing to improve one's chances of survival in the REAL world. In fact, it's a horrible, dangerous liability that can get people killed, like when Hitler said "They'll NEVER bomb this place."

Illustration: detail from "The Temptation of St. Anthony" by Matthias Gruenewald, German, 16th century.