Huge collective psychoses, such as the delusional nightmare known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, resemble the novel coronavirus COVID-19 in at least one way: they both belong to groups of phenomena that have not been well-studied. They each represent rare birds indeed.

If we had enough datapoints to sketch out a "natural history of large scale social delusions," would we see near the end of each episode of the illness a growing exhaustion in the host civilization, such that via rapid historical change the original narcissistic wound, or psychic insult, or trauma gets somehow undone, accompanied by societal and cultural readjustments that accomplish seeming miracles of the return of the "old normal?"

Imagine the changes that might IMMEDIATELY accompany a Biden victory on November 3rd: all the violence just evaporates. All the BLM signage would come down -- nobody really wanted to look at it anyway. The Chinese will kiss and make up. Disoriented citizens, as they shed their long-standing cognitive distortions, will look at each other as if to say, "Whew. What was THAT all about?"