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I\u2019ve seen so many people go and meet with Donald Trump and come and be like, oh, he\u2019s really charming and personable. And I\u2019m like, of course he\u2019s charming and personable. Like, what were you expecting? But this is where the science comes in. Because if you go in and you see charming and personable, just add it to your data set: Noted. He\u2019s doing these incoherent things. He seems to be kind of largely incoherent in his views and in his plans. He seems to have a terrific mean streak. And when I talk to him, he\u2019s so nice. OK, so now we have a new portrait of the man. And I think that would totally enable one to oppose him better \u2014 better than if you had a caricature of him that didn\u2019t comply with truth. To me, as a scientist, I mean, well, yeah, of course, you\u2019d want all the information you could have. And if it\u2019s hard to process or it\u2019s complicated, that\u2019s OK. That\u2019s just part of the game. So I think that\u2019s part of maybe \u2014 there\u2019s so much emotion right now, so much agitation and fear. And I think that somehow for some reason, that makes people crave autopilot, a set of beliefs that\u2019s very simple and is sturdy in every circumstance. And that\u2019s not really what human beings are good at. I mean, we like it, we like it. But out of that comes violence and extremity. And I would say that\u2019s what the right is doing right now. They somehow \u2014 I think they know they\u2019re looting the house and they know the time is limited. And so they\u2019re agitated and they\u2019re on autopilot. And anybody who opposes them is a leftist lunatic. You have the evidence of your senses \u2014 says this in Minneapolis is a murder. They fictionalize the fact that he was, quote unquote, brandishing a gun. That\u2019s panic. That\u2019s panic. But it\u2019s also autopilot, because a person not on autopilot would watch the damn video, and would adjust their viewpoint accordingly. That\u2019s what intelligent people do. Or \u2014 it\u2019s funny, I wonder if it\u2019s autopilot or \u2014 Well, one of the things it is is autopilot \u2014 It is an attempt to impose the domination that power can have over other people on reality itself. Yeah. When I see that, when I see \u2014 when I am lied to in that way, I understand it as an act of domination. One hundred percent. They do not expect me to believe it. Well, you know what it\u2019s like? It\u2019s like if you went into a really nice restaurant and somebody, the waiter, brought you three turds on a tray and put it down. \u201cEnjoy!\u201d There\u2019s a kind of a disbelief that he just did that. If you don\u2019t stand up and say, get this, get these turds out of here, bring me my lasagna, then he\u2019s won. And if he keeps bringing the turds and you don\u2019t call him on it, then you erode \u2014 your belief in truth erodes and you start to shrink. And pretty soon, all bets are off. So I think that\u2019s where \u2014 and now what amazes me is that they want that and they know how to do it, that\u2019s the part that if I was going to write a book about this time, I would try \u2014 I would really want to understand, because as you said, I don\u2019t think that they \u2014 I don\u2019t think anyone gets up in the morning and goes, yeah, time to be evil. I don\u2019t think \u2014 I mean, there are probably some sociopaths and so on, but mostly I think JD Vance wakes up in the morning and he feels like a good Catholic. And that\u2019s fascinating to me. I don\u2019t \u2014 Despite being repeatedly rebuked by popes. Yes. A couple of years after he turned Catholic \u2014 It is interesting and as a writer, that\u2019s such rich stuff to go towards that which you don\u2019t understand and vow not to falsify it in either direction. Just look at it, look at it, look at it. That\u2019s rich.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve seen so many people go and meet with Donald Trump and come and be like, oh, he\u2019s really charming and personable. And I\u2019m like, of course he\u2019s charming and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":7773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[8631,398,57,8630],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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