A hostage situation

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

You’ve probably heard the term “Stockholm Syndrome” before. You might even know what it means, even if you don’t know the origin of the phrase.

In 1973, a failed bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweded turned into a hostage situation, with the robber taking four bank employees as captives inside the bank for nearly a week while police surrounded the building. Fortunately, after deploying tear gas into the bank, the standoff ended without anyone being injured or killed.

The strange thing about he case was that the four hostages refused to cooperate with the prosecutors at trial. They had, inexplicably, formed some kind of attachment or bond to the man who held them hostage. Were they brainwashed, as some claim? Was there some unusual psychological sympathizing or

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something at play? No one is really quite sure, but the idea became known as Stockholm Syndrome and in the 50 years since, it has been used to describe any situation in which the abused or wronged party develops an attachment to his or hertormentor/abuser.

I’m beginning to think that a lot of folks have developed a form of “political Stockholm Syndrome” here lately — unwilling or unable to see the very obvious flaws in the candidate they are supporting.

It might actually be a little worse than that. Fast-forward a few months from the bank robbery… In 1974, a woman named Patty Hearst was kidnapped by a group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. A few months after her kidnapping, however, Hearst announced that she was actually joining the SLA and supporting their cause. She was even caught on camera brandishing a machine gun during a bank robbery by the SLA of a bank in California.

She was ultimately captured/ rescued, at which time her defense attorney claimed she had been brainwashed. It did not work…

So what have we learned here? First, the 1970s were crazy. Second, you can claim you’re being brainwashed into supporting a terrible political candidate, but ultimately, we are the ones who have to decide if we’re going to be held hostage for the next four years.