Pernicious parasites turn victims into zombies

I have been posting about the demographics and political factors that contributed to Pres. Barack Obama winning reelection. The Democrat base consists of parasites who are dependent on government benefits, and of liberals playing the victim of supposed Republican policies. The real trick was getting all these deadbeats to vote. The Obama campaign machine did this successfully with negative ads, early voting, hate campaigns, clever spam, press manipulators, and nagging the base.

Now a new scientific research paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology has a brilliant analysis:

HOW PERNICIOUS PARASITES TURN VICTIMS INTO ZOMBIES
Kathryn Knight

Parasites come in all shapes and forms. ... But there is one group of parasites that is particularly pernicious – they are the parasites that hijack their host’s nervous system, turning their victims into zombies. ‘The fact that parasites can so efficiently alter host behaviour is fascinating’, says JEB Editor Michael Dickinson, from the University of Washington, USA, adding, ‘There is something horrifying and wondrous about a tiny “implant” being able to control such a large animal machine’. What is more, it appears that these minute manipulators can have a significant, and often under-appreciated, impact on ecology, physiology and evolution, orchestrating the behaviour of vertebrates and invertebrates alike.

Mitt Romney ran a fine campaign, but he did not hijack anyone's nervous system, and he only appealed to vertebrates.

Update: The NY Times has picked up on this story:

“The knowledge that parasites can manipulate their hosts is old. The new part is how they do it,” ...

Other parasites manipulate their hosts by altering the neurotransmitters in their brains. This kind of psychopharmacology is how thorny-headed worms send their hosts to their doom.

I am afraid that thorny-headed worms and zombies may be sending us to our doom.