Darryl Betts
I am a businessman and father, with particular interests in the philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, epistemology, logic, and AI.
The reaction online to Donald Trump’s win [...] is incredible. On Twitter/X there is one post after another from people expressing anger, shock, disbelief, confusion, and hyperbole. Many of those posts have a torrent of replies with similar sentiments. These posts contain laundry lists of cataclysmic predictions and things that just do not make sense to them. They just cannot comprehend what has happened. The sense of bewilderment is palpable.
Here is a small sample of posts (note that most of these have many replies attached to them, which echo the same views):
If you want to see some video reactions that people have posted, have a look at this compilation:
Of course there is a simple explanation to these reactions. These people have been the victims of a decade-long anti-Trump propaganda campaign, and they have just been slapped full in the face by reality.
When I say that people have been slapped in the face by reality, I am not saying that the reality of what has happened has caused these people to change their views – not at all. They are trapped firmly in their Trump-hating worldview – and they just cannot make this fit with the reality they are now confronted with. The result is an extreme case of cognitive dissonance.
For those of us who have been persecuted for our non-mainstream political views for many years, there is humor and a certain amount of satisfaction to be had from these online tantrums. But there is also a very serious side. The dangers created by such wide-spread derangement have not been lessened by this collision with reality – I think the dangers are now greater.
I have put my explanation to a few of these distraught individuals. I have suggested that Occam’s razor (the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best) favors my explanation. But the social media algorithm is such that my voice cannot be heard in the avalanche of anger and confusion. They are not listening to anyone other than those who reinforce their view – let alone considering that there might be a simple answer to their confusion. They are especially resistant to explanations which would require them to accept that they have been duped.
Actually, there is one simple explanation that they have latched onto, which is that – according to them – they live in a country filled with the most terrible people imaginable. That is what many people are taking away from what has just happened, and that is why I think the danger and harm has now been ratcheted up yet another notch.
I lay the blame for this with the mainstream media who have propagated and sustained this narrative for the past decade. While the narrative may have originated outside the media, it is the media who should have been a voice for the people, speaking truth to power. It is the media who should have been challenging the assertions of individuals who might have a vested interest in doing political damage to Donald Trump.
There are countless examples of the anti-Trump narrative that I am talking about, but here is a recent one that caught my eye.
The article fails with the very first example – which is a comment Donald Trump made about Liz Cheney during a recent sit down with Tucker Carlson. The quote was “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it … when the guns are trained on her face.” Anyone with basic language comprehension skills understands that Trump was making the point that the elites who advocate for war might feel differently if they themselves were on the front lines.
Trump may have chosen a rather graphic way to make his point – as he is inclined to do – but his meaning is clear. Far from advocating for violence toward Cheney, Trump was actually acknowledging and honoring those who serve and who make the ultimate sacrifice. Trump was showing empathy toward every parent whose child goes off to war.
Even the title image of the article is fallacious and misleading. The statement “I’d like to punch him in the face” is not incitement to violence. Assuming Trump even said this, it is merely a statement of personal desire. The statement “I would like to give John a gift” is not an incitement for other people to give John a gift. The statement “I would like to eat broccoli” is not an incitement for other people to eat broccoli.
Examples like this do make me seriously question the education and intellectual capabilities of the people who work in the mainstream media, but the failure here is not simply one of incompetence. The false narrative is intentionally directed at some individuals and not others, and the root cause is much deeper than incompetence or even simple corruption – it is the woke mind virus which has infected everything in Western society.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog.
