AWA talked about cognitive dissonance (“…when two opposing thoughts reside in the same mind, generating inner conflicts and psychological distress…” — PC), but I want to talk about cognitive distortions (“Error in the thinking process, automatic thought, erroneous thought pattern. Different from logical fallacies.” — ibid) in relation to the Left.
So I was at a ren faire (Maine Ren Faire, in case anyone wants to visit me next weekend, as that’s where I’ll be then, too – look for me at the fire) when Biden decided to step down. I got the news from several sources, but mostly through word of mouth. Now Ren Faires are a bastion of the Left… everything is rainbows and glitter, men in dresses is a regular thing, and anyone can be anything they want. But Ren Faires also have a surprising number of conservative folk at them, albeit ones who are chill about gay and trans people. I have always been a wee bit more Right than the average faire person, and so I rarely talk politics. I was surprised to be hearing about Biden, as we actively avoid reading the news while at faire. Be that as it may, it was relayed to me as fact, not news, and people didn’t put a spin on it, for which I was grateful.
After hearing about it, I went and looked stuff up. I read some stuff on AP, pawed through a Washington Times article, and then went to FaceBook to see what other people were saying. Yes, I know, never go to FB for information, but part of the reason I DO, is because I write about things here. The people that I interact with on FB are friends and/or acquaintances, and so they aren’t random caricatures on social media, and I think I get much better information because of that.
Right now, the main things that are being bandied about are:
- positive memes about Harris
- a rounding chorus of “Vote blue no matter who!”
- “reminders” that if you say “ignorant things” about women, your daughters and wives hear you
- comments that it is “time for women to lead” (with disparaging remarks if someone suggests we pick the BEST candidate)
- a call for Obama to run (with a lot of very patient explanations about why he can’t… good grief that one hurts)
- a call for Obama to run as VP for Harris (which is a legally squishy area)
- a lovely note that if Biden had died instead of stepping down, Harris would already be president, so just vote for her already
That’s just a taste from a couple of friends’ timelines. There were more, but I deleted the people who called for violence or did fat shaming or name calling (that’s a thing for me every political season, and I do it for *everyone* who does it, not just one side). There’s this complete inability for the Left to see anything positive that Trump’s done, or to admit that Harris has done very little. Then there’s the whole part about how Harris will be good at the job because she’s been Joe’s VP for the last four years, and so she has “lots of experience.” At the same time, in the same paragraph, the person said Trump didn’t have enough experience to be President.
There is definitely a lot of “two opposing thoughts” in the Left’s rhetoric. Unfortunately, there’s also a ton of cognitive distortions. I think there may be MORE of the distortions than the dissonance, because the dissonance requires you to be uncomfortable with your two opposing thoughts. They (the people I know, at least) don’t seem to be in any discomfort whatsoever. They embrace it. It is the very definition of an “…error in the thinking process…”
It’s been very interesting watching some of my friends imploding because other friends suggested that the Dems as a whole were being dicks by not really allowing a choice to be made. Half of my Left friends are upset because Harris has now been forced on them, and they don’t get to actually pick a presidential candidate (though of course they don’t realize that they never had that choice anyhow because of how the Dems work their side of things, but that’s another article entirely). The other half of my Left friends are having melt downs because the other half are somehow causing the Left to lose because we all just have to vote for Harris or Trump will take away all women’s rights and force us to be sex slaves and incubators.
I can’t make this stuff up. It’s distressing to me.
It’s kind of terrifying, watching everyone Left of center picking up the same words, the same cadence, the same memes, the same phrasing. This is happening even among people that I consider *friends*, good friends who are otherwise thinking and rational human beings. It reminds me of what happened with kids a couple of years ago when you put on the song Ney Ney. It didn’t matter what they were doing, if the song came on they dropped it and just started doing the shuffle dance moves. Zombies, man… they’re training them early.
This time last election, I was upset over a lot of things. Yes, I disliked Trump enough that I wasn’t seeing any of his positive things. Yes, I was hopeful that Biden would do better. In that particular “hold my nose” scenario, I prayed that Biden would be the better choice. I am not afraid to admit that I was wrong. I’m not afraid to notice that Trump has changed, too, in the past four years.
All that aside, I am trying not to engage in cognitive distortions OR dissonance. I really think Nikki Haley was the better choice, not because she is female, but because she has a lot of the same thoughts as Trump but is a lot nicer to look at and has a much more professional stance… and she’s younger. Having presidential candidates who could conceivably die of old-age related diseases before the end of their tenure is HUGELY problematic to me. Yes, Trump is much healthier than Biden (mentally at least), but he’s still 78 years old. He’s overweight, and that comes with a host of issues that I’m intimately familiar with, and it scares me that he could get into office and then have an aneurysm or heart attack and we’d be in another mess. I like Vance (so far, at least, but I need to do more investigation), but I don’t know that he’s truly ready to step up as President right now.
For people who I judge are thinking folks, I am pushing the narrative that “even if” Trump wins, he can’t just make up laws. That’s not how it works. We The People have choices, and when election time comes around for conservative folks doing unpopular things, they WILL get voted out. It’s my hope that they’ll be replaced with conservative folks who are doing “the right thing” while also listening to the People that they are beholden to. I suspect, however, that they’d be replaced by Leftists. That’s a message I want to send out to the conservative people currently in office, by the by. Don’t be so stupid that you’re going against your populace, because you WILL get yourself tossed out, and that definitely isn’t going to help your party.
When we polarize, as we currently are, the checks and balances built into our government don’t work as well. I agree with the calls for unity, even if I disagree with a lot of the people who are doing the calls. I don’t want a divided states… I want the United States. We’re a grand experiment and I don’t want it to end on my watch.
Comments
11 responses to “Cognitive Distortions”
if you only see, read, hear,repeat, do what others are seeing, reading, repeating, doing you are a “zombie”…
many do this and say they are fine and anyone who has a different opinion is not fine.. believing you are right and everyone else is wrong is a major roadblock to this Country…
I rarely consider myself to be 100% correct. Generally it has to do with things I’m trained in (grammar, writing, editing, etc). Once in a long while, it’s because I’ve done the work to go read and study all the source material, and understand it. But most of the time, I assume that I may be missing pieces of information, and do my best to remain open to new interpretations, data, and experiences.
I have always taught my kids, you learn a lot more by being wrong, than by being right. Embrace being wrong, and learn from it.
Same thing is happening on the right. The statements may be different, but the sentiment is the same.
One thing that I am not seeing from the folks on the right are justifications for nominating an unqualified individual. (OK… granted, that can be said about Trump… but, while he did not hold an elected position, he was the chief executive of more than one business.) Just because Harris is black, female, and/or VP is meaningless. That qualifies her to be a black female who holds a title. The real question is “What has she done? Accomplishments?”
And, that is one of the biggest cognitive distortions on the left. This belief that “It is time for a female.” somehow makes ANY woman qualified for the position. Ask them to name something of significance that Harris (or Hillary, or even Barack Obama for that matter) has accomplished in any of the positions they have held. Good luck actually getting an answer. But, because of plumbing or pigmentation, they are somehow a good choice.
Ask them if they would insist on a black female as their surgeon, rather then the top surgeon in the country, regardless of skin color or sex. Suddenly woman’s rights are not so important…
Final note. I will admit I am hypocritical here. I will voting for Trump/Vance for reasons that have nothing to do with their accomplishments, personality, or age. This election is not about the candidates. It is about the US remaining a sovereign nation versus becoming subservient to the globalists/WEF/Davos/COP agendas. There is nothing the democrats have done over the last several decades that does not support that agenda. At the bare minimum, Trump is fighting against it.
There are stances of the Right that I disagree with, but they generally have some sort of basis that’s logical, and that I can understand. I don’t really see the type of cognitive dissonance that I do with the Left. Though there are a couple of minor things that do come to mind…
And yes, I agree on the “time for a woman” thingie. Gezus. While I would love to see a woman sitting as President, I would ONLY want that if the woman were not only qualified, but over qualified for the position. Frankly, any woman who sits in that seat had better be ten times better than any penis-bearing person before her, because otherwise she’ll just be chewed up and spit out by everyone.
I thought Nikki Haley could have done it, and was very excited by her stepping up. She seems to be a strong leader, and is financially savvy. She’s very young, though, younger than me. In four years, I want to look at her again. But at no point did I have an interest in her because she had internal plumbing. That’s not a selling point, to me. Neither is the melanin count in someone’s skin, or if they’re a “hyphenated person” (ie African-American, Asian-American, etc). People who vote for a skin color or a sexual trait are unfortunately racist and bigoted, even if they don’t realize it.
I do not like that this election is “not about the candidates.” It should be! This should be a high stakes job interview that We The People are the employers for. I want to be looking at both (all) candidates and weighing what they bring to the table, and why each of them is good, bad, and indifferent. The fact that Trump’s main selling point is that he’s brash enough to scare the Middle East and Russia into behaving is not a good one, in my opinion. And Harris brings so little to the table that I don’t even know why she’s interviewing.
Argh.
And, in a sane world, the election would be about the candidates. This one is not.
One party as a whole is all in on the globalist agenda. It does not matter what candidate they run, they will be a puppet for the WEF/COP “elites.”
The other party is most of the way in on the globalist/leftist agenda. There are a few party members who are struggling against it. However, their candidate, despite his laundry list of flaws, is 100% for the individual American. It is so much more than “scaring the middle east into compliance.”
Unfortunately, too many people are voting personality, or worse pigmentation and plumbing.
Great post, thank you. I am hearing some similar things. And it really troubles me. This is the person who didn’t even make it to the first primary, remember…
By the way, a quick thought … You wrote “The people that I interact with on FB are friends and/or acquaintances, and so they aren’t random caricatures on social media, and I think I get much better information because of that.”
I would be careful with that assumption. Your friends are most likely not primary sources, and so likely got their info from a secondary source at best. (No disrespect or aspersions intended, this assumption is just based on statistics.)
So they might be a “de-crazy-making” filter for you in terms of delivery, but that doesn’t mean the base info is valid, even if it is presented more palatably.
I realize my friends aren’t primary sources (they definitely are not, not “likely”). I meant more that my friends, the people I choose to interact with in “real life” are good people, real people, intelligent people. I know this *because* I interact with them face to face on a regular basis. This means they provide me with a “best scenario” of what the Left is thinking. I don’t have to worry that they are random crazy people on the internet who may not represent a larger group. If that makes sense. 🙂
I talk to them about this stuff, and read their posts, because I WANT that information presented palatably. I don’t wade around in the mire most of the time, because it messes up my blood pressure.
” I would ONLY want that if the woman were not only qualified, but over qualified for the position.”
Please explain how even men should not also be “overqualified” for the position. “Overqualified” indicates “excess capacity” which strikes me as pretty much the minimum standard for the presidency. I would think “overqualified” should be the default setting regardless of sex, race, height, handedness, etc.
I cannot speak for Allyson, but I assume she means the news media (and the average voter) will give the first female President a LARGE amount of latitude in their job performance. Having an overqualified woman in the position would ensure that the “Fluff” pieces do not disguise incompetence.
Looking at the way the media beatified Obama because of his skin color, and as a result ignored his inability to do the job is a good example. The “lightbringer” could do no wrong, not because he was a great President, but because the people who supported him because of his skin cannot/will never admit he was not qualified.
Having an overqualified woman will avoid that. The news can elevate her to sainthood without harming the USA.
That’s exactly what I meant. I do not want the first article I see about our first woman President to be about what she wore to her swearing in. *smacks forehead*
What CBMTTek said. When women are doing a thing for the first time, they simply cannot be “just qualified.” We’re required to be able to do everything a man does, but backwards and in heels, as Ginger Rogers is reported to have said. There cannot be a single question about the woman’s capabilities, and she can never, EVER have an emotional moment where she can be seen. That’s how we “break the glass ceiling.”
I feel another article coming on. Maybe next week.
Regardless, it would be nice if everyone who interviewed to be President were over qualified. It’s just that men aren’t required to be. They can be bombastic, loud, rude, in people’s faces… they can have emotional fits in public… they can make mistakes… Women can’t afford to do that. Any tiny infraction becomes a huge thing in the eyes of a very raucous minority, and we’re torn down.