The book is a followup to McDonald’s United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis, and addresses the "undiagnosed epidemic of fear addiction."
McDonald explained that fear can by physiologically addicting, much like drugs or alcholol– where repeated addictive behaviors
change baseline anxiety levels, so that eventually a fix only brings an individual to a normal level of function.
"This what Americans have become. They have become baseline highly anxious. And they only way for them to bring their anxiety down to a normal healthy level, say pre-2020 is for them to, let's say, grab a mask when they walk past somebody on the street," McDonald told Hamachek. "Tell their children not to play with their friends because it's very dangerous and they need to just do zoom play. Not go to work, because staying home is a much more comfortable safe and anxiety freeing behavior."
McDonald explained that the path to recovery from fear is much like a traditional 12 Step program. "Being addicted to an unhealthy behavior places you in a state of developmental arrest. You cannot grow, you cannot develop, you cannot fulfil your potential so long as you are under the control of the addiction," he said.
Watch the full interview above.
