The Cognitive Tom Fuckery that Explains the Embarrassment of Impeachment Defense

One of the big take aways from day one of the Senate impeachment trial was how poorly prepared the lawyers for the Ol’ Pussy Grabber were. Say what you will about them because I don’t know a darn thing about them other than they agreed to work for the Ol’ Pussy Grabber. Anyone who is working for him in year four of his narcissacracy has got to have no self respect and completely consumed by self-serving avarice.

The question I want to answer here is, why would they be prepared? So many pundits are expressing surprise, My goodness, George, I can’t believe how unprepared they are! And, they’re telling falsehoods and making huge mistakes. Seriously? After four years of watching bumblefuck blunder his way across the world stage, you’re surprised that his lawyers can’t get this right?

What incentive would they have to come in as prepared as Schiff and the Dems are? First, they know that #MoscowMitch is going to acquit. If it’s controlled by Mitch, they will acquit. They know that no matter what they do, that’s the outcome. They could stand up there and read Green Eggs and Ham or fart the alphabet or show their pet pictures or explain why the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is guilty in great detail, and he would still be acquitted. It’s not like its a real trial or anything like they actually have a chance at losing.

They’re old folks, and they’re already going to be kept up to 3:00 AM and expected back at 1:00 PM the next day! How is that even fair? How much effort are they going to put into this? Hunh?

Since the fish rots from the head down, you wouldn’t expect them to be any more prepared than the Ol’ Pussy Grabber was for anything he’s ever done, so zilch-o.

Cognitive Dissonance

As complete and satisfying of answer as that is, there is more to the story. I have to think Pat Cipollone is a professional and has some sense of professional pride and stuff. Hell, even the likes of Jay Sekulow and Pam Bondi have to have some kind of pride. Let’s face it Kenneth Starr left is pride on the Bill Clinton’s cum-stained blue dress.

What would it be like actually preparing for this trial? They would have to think about the charges and evidence against the Ol’ Pussy Grabber, and they would have to think of the arguments that the House impeachment managers would make. Then, they would have to think of ways of refuting them, which would mean that they would have to think about the law and the Constitution. In short, they would have to consider (a) how guilty he is because there ain’t no gettin’ ’round that one, (b) how much they were aiding and abetting a traitor to our country because there’s no getting around that, and (c) the pure evil that they are working for. And, that my friends is where cognitive dissonance comes in.

We can all do amazingly bad and wrong things as long as we don’t think about it too much. The ability of the mind to rationalize all of the atrocities ever committed on a human being by another makes your head spin when you realize that if you ask the atrocity-committer, they did it for very good reasons. But, this would be different. They would have to walk through the details of each and every crime. They would have to confront the evil that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber and his admin, i.e. Cipollone, has done. Then, they would have to see how it matched up with each and every charge, and then think of some way to refute that. How do you refute traitorous evil?

There’s a degree of cognitive dissonance necessary for someone who has just a shred of decency left in them that may be a bridge too far for someone like Cipollone. In pressuring the Ukraine to announce that they were opening a fake investigation — no real investigation necessary just like a real trial isn’t necessary — in exchange for legally granted aide money, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has made himself into one of the most immoral self-dealing crooks to have ever squatted in the Oval. Not only that, but there is solid evidence that this is the fourth try at getting her done. This is the fourth quid pro quo exchange that they’ve tried to make with Zelensky having previously whiffed on a visit by Mother Pence, the highest-breasted queen to have ever graced Blair House (allegedly), at his inauguration and a visit to the WH.

Cognitive dissonance is the cognitive trick that we play on ourselves when our behavior does not match our beliefs or values. Imagine your average American citizen finding herself, as Pat Cipollone has, in a position to help an active traitor. You don’t realize it at first. You take a job at the White House because you’re near the top of your profession, but, also, because you have some love of country. It’s an honor to serve your country by working in such a singular place. Little by little it dawns on you that the person you work for is not only a shit but also a traitor. He’s selling out the country for personal gain.

Wow! Talk about conflicts. How do you reconcile the patriotism that persuaded you to work for your country with damaging your country by doing so? Most of us cannot admit that kind of mistake to ourselves. The error is of too great of a magnitude. Most of us would become adept at ignoring all of the signs that we are actively damaging the country we love. Unless of course, you’re a psychopath like so many successful business people and politicians are, then it is whatever serves you best.

For grasping shallow people like Pam Bondi who find themselves in the pit of vipers working at the WH, it might be met with a shrug and a grind of the teeth, but Cipollone may be a cut above that. And, he may be desperate to continue the thinly veiled fiction that he is still a patriot working to better his country while aiding and abetting and colluding with the perfidious bunch that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has surrounded himself with.

I’ll be unkind to Bondi. It probably hasn’t even dawned on her, yet, what exactly is going on and how badly she’s being used. But, Cipollone leads the show. They do what he says and follow his lead. And, he may be tying himself in knots right about now to convince himself that what he’s doing is right or at least okay. If you were trying to not admit to yourself that you are actively being seditious, then you might, when put in a place to defend the sedition, not examine it too closely, especially, if you didn’t have to, to defend it. You know, you might just ignore the whole big stinking pile of putrefying morass in the middle of the room.

If given the opportunity to just mail it in, I think you would. I think that’s what we’re seeing here. The lawyers defending the Ol’ Pussy Grabber just mailing one in for the team because it beats actually doing the job they were sent in to do. Also, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has probably told them what he wants them to say, so why go beyond that brief? Everything that’s been said and done so far in his defense smacks of his narcissistic lack of reasoning and understanding of the real world.

After all is said and done with this sorry chapter in our history in whatever survives this dystopian moment in our history — I don’t think we’ll have the proud democracy that was flawed but trying to be a more perfect union that we once had; we’ll be a disgraced democracy, at best, trying to pick up the pieces and find our way in the world — someone will be able to write a hellva dissertation on the all the cognitive Tom fuckery that was needed to cow the entire GOP, politicians and rank and vile alike, into submission, the groupthink, cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning, and what have you.

Image Attribution

The image was found using a Creative Commons search. It was found on WikiCommons Media, File: Elephant’s tea party, Robur Tea Room, Sydney, 24 March 1939 – Sam Hood (3529604677). It is from the State Library of New South Wales collection. It was taken from Flikr’s The Commons, which has determined that no known copyright exits.