cartoon credit here
So many of my friends and relatives
seem to live rational lives, yet when it comes to politics, their emotions take
over. That makes it next to impossible to apply critical thinking to a discussion
of issues of concern. But it’s not a new phenomenon.
Paul Murphy just published a column at
the American Thinker website, provocatively titled “Democrats in the Cesspits of Despair.” He goes into the theory of cognitive dissonance and applies it to
what we’ve seen with Bush or Palin Derangement Syndrome, and now, Trump
Derangement Syndrome.
Murphy’s analysis won’t make hard left
liberals (and that’s most of the media) more honest or less destructive, but at
least it explains the behaviour. (Another article on the related topic of “The
Obama Cult” is here).
Anyway, here are a few take-aways from
Murphy’s column (and the entire article is here):
When Leon Festinger and his associates undertook the work leading
to their widely misunderstood and maligned theory of cognitive dissonance,
their ultimate goal was to understand how forty million decent Germans and tens
of millions in the rest of Europe could so enthusiastically support Nazi
methods -- and it's their research on how cult members react to the unequivocal
disproof of some central belief that's important today -- because the increasing
calls among Democrats for violence shows
that same process at work here as in Germany of the 1930s.
In brief, what happens when events disprove a cult's major belief
is that some adherents drop out; a majority first reshape their vision of
reality to accommodate both their belief and an edited version of reality and
then either gradually fade out of the cult or double down on their efforts to
find confirmatory opinion by compromising others; and, a few set out to force
others to act as if the belief stands unchallenged.
. . .
The key elements that have to be in place for the true believers
to slide toward dishonesty and violence are personal commitment to the belief,
undeniable disproof, and enough rationality for the person to know that the
belief has been disproven.
That two of these are in place with the Trump victory deniers is
obvious: most of the journalists and others now attacking Trump in particular
and Republicans in general have overwhelming and long term commitments to the
progressive cause. This despite the fact that every major attempt to act on
those beliefs, whether by Uncle Joe, Chairman Mao, the Kim Dynasty in North
Korea, or that great
hero and champion of the poor, Hugo
Chavez, has turned into a murderous regime corrupting everyone and everything it
touched.
. . .
Thus the behavioral explanation for the fact that conservatives
will generally accept electoral defeat gracefully whereas Democrats eagerly
embrace hypocrisy, corruption, dishonesty and even violence to continue the
fight by any means necessary is simply this: reality supports conservative
belief, but pushes leftists down the slippery slope to the insanity of Trump
derangement syndrome. Reality forces them to continually choose between
recognizing the emptiness and historical absurdity of their core beliefs or
holding themselves hostage to those beliefs by escalating their commitment, no
matter what foul means may be required to make reality conform to their
fantasy.
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