SUMMARY: In an era of growing political polarization and eroding democratic norms, this piece delves into the cognitive dissonance that allows many to dismiss the very real threats facing American democracy. Through a penetrating examination of the psychological mechanisms at play, the author sheds light on how willful ignorance and entrenched biases sustain a dangerous collective denial. Drawing on the weathered visage of experience, this insightful commentary challenges readers to confront hard truths and reckon with the precarious state of the nation’s democratic institutions. Only by understanding the roots of this cognitive dissonance can we hope to break the cycle and forge a path towards meaningful reform.
KEY WORDS: Cognitive Dissonance, Democratic Decline, Political Polarization, Willful Ignorance, Entrenched Biases, Democratic Institutions, Psychological Mechanisms, Collective Denial, Meaningful Reform, Precarious State
COMMENT: This is my take on why we’re still mired in Biden’s “poor” debate performance and haven’t moved on to the next new shiny object yet. What’s yours? I’d love to discuss them with you, in the comments.
Well, if you’re like me — Is it me, or did it just get colder in here? Hey, wait a minute, I know that chill. It’s familiar… Mah! Mah! You restless mirthless spirit! Cut it out! I KNOW no body is like me. You told me often enough in life. You can stop know, you know, from the grave. — this week has had a good bit of Alice In Wonderland waking up in a strange new world feel to it.
How could a debate held five months before the election have changed the dynamics of the race so completely? What set of forces could have come together so inverted the views of the two major candidates? It just doesn’t seem possible that not only the country, but the Democratic Party, could have turned so completely against Old Handsome Joe Biden in 90 minutes.
As the country languishes under a heat dome driving temperatures to the limits of human endurance. As wildfires, once again, rage across our Western states. As another outsized overpowered hurricane lashes a coastal region leaving millions without power, and Ted’s Cancun adventure once again an embarrassing footnote in history, we’re having doubts about the candidate who has done anything substantive about bolstering the ability of the world’s climate to support the lives of seven billion real live not quite dead and no longer as miserable as they once were human beings in favor of the only candidate who is openly campaigning on making things worse so a few dozen 100 billionaires can have a shot at becoming 500 billionaires before the entire ecosystem of the planet collapses?
Seriously. That’s the take away from the debate? That’s the “narrative” that the media is supporting?
We watched one person stammer and grope for words while another openly admitted pussy groper opened his explosive diarrhea of falsehoods and Gish Galloped around the stage for 90 minutes, and our take away is that maybe the stammerer isn’t the best candidate?
Felonious, the caricature of a rapist clown, trying hard to cover the blackhole of his insecurities with a tightly woven suit of lies, jactations, and disinformation who has never won anything fairly in his life, including the 2016 election any any golf tournament whether it is on one of his own courses or another, on one side of the stage and the most experienced and accomplished person to ever have run for office on the other, and the only lasting take away is Biden so old.
What festering caldron of biases and heuristics can explain this seemingly topsy-turvy shift in public perception? The answer, my friends, lies in the insidious workings of cognitive dissonance – the psychological phenomena that allows us to ignore glaring truths and cling to comforting delusions. We’ll dive into how our need to believe and the effect of surprise and confirmation bias all combine to help us not see Election 2024 for what it is, a choice between democracy and oligarchy.
Designed to BELIEVE
We are designed to believe, not to question. On the hunter-gatherer savannas where we evolved our current set of hardware and most of our software, those of us who dithered over whether the rustling in the long grass could be a chetah or just the wind, were more likely to be eaten and their dithering questioning genes removed from the gene pool. While those who said, “Fuck it! Run!” gave truth to the punchline, “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I just have to outrun you!”
Seeing is believing: Biden so Old
We saw Biden looking disheveled and uncertain on stage. We believed that he is.
Of course, we’ve been primed to believe it by all of the flying monkey squad saying Biden so old and producing very manipulated video of him seeming disoriented. Just as a quick aside, here, our rights to free speech, which is what makes those highly manipulated videos possible, comes with a responsibility to be honest and not knowingly lie, deceive, and manipulate. We are not holding ourselves accountable to the minimum standard that makes our society viable. We cannot succeed as a group of people if we aren’t honest with each other.
The Thin Veneer of Truthiness of Repeated Lies
But, what a minute. Didn’t we also experience with our senses Trump dumping his Gish of lies upon the moderators, Biden, and all of the viewers at home? Yes we did, but Trump is relying on the old, a lie repeated is a lie believed technique.
We encode our memories based on the strength of the emotion aroused at the moment of experience and at the moment of recall — we re-encode our memory after recalling it; that’s what makes memory is fallible — and on the frequency of experiencing it. The sun always comes up in the east. Grass is green. The sky is blue. Shadows move at the same rate in the same direction every day. The natural world doesn’t lie to us, so if it is repeated, then it must be true.
Even if you can’t focus on everything the Felonious Rapist said during his allotted time to trample the truth, you heard it, making it more likely you’ll believe it the next time you hear it. Worse, you’ve heard it all before, so now it is just reinforced, especially when the MODERATORS aren’t challenging it. Worse, it is such a flood of word salad strung together just cogently enough to be sort of understandable, you just tune it out. You can’t focus on one thing.
You’re overall impression of the Human Caricature, Destroyer of Our World, was that he was coherent and calm and focused. We’ve acclimated to the stench of his growing puddle of liquid lies spewing from his ass.
Surprise & Confirmation Bias
We expected the Wrecking Ball of Democracy to lie. We didn’t expect Biden to stammer and be confused.
We weren’t surprised by Trump’s performance; it was what we expected. We may have been surprised that he was as coherent as he was.
We were surprised by Biden’s performance; it wasn’t what we expected. We were surprised by his incoherence and in ability to articulate words and phrases.
We all have bad moments in our lives, but when they confirm our worst expectations, they stand out. We focused on Biden’s poor performance because it surprised us, but then it confirmed all of our sneaking agist ideas about how unfit anyone over the age of 65 — funny how the age keeps getting pushed back the older you get — is for life. I mean the anti-vaxxer-maskers of the #COVID19 pandemic taught us that, right? Who cares if my 85 year old mother dies next week of #COVID19 or next year of congestive heart failure, right? That extra year of life doesn’t matter (it mattered to me, mah) enough to inconvenience me to wear a mask and not allow my feeble mind to be manipulated into further polarizing our already polarized society so some 100 billionaire has a shot at being a 500 billionaire before the planet succumbs to the carbon we’ve released into it, right? Motherfucker, I’m not bitter. You’re bitter. You ever think of that?
Okay, I am bitter. Now, where were we?
Biden’s debate performance just confirmation biased all of our suspicions about him because of the systemic agism built into our culture: Old people just can’t. Eew. Get them away from me! Amirite?
The Cognitive Dissonance that Sustains the Destruction of Our Democracy
Every American who was born in America and remaining alive today, has lived their whole lives in a democracy. Just like we can’t imagine what the world would be like if we weren’t living in it — That includes, even you, you depressed, low self-esteem pessimistic nogoodniks, no matter what you say — we can’t imagine not living in a democracy.
No matter how much Rachel Maddow and Timothy Snyder say it on the TV, we simply cannot believe that we won’t live be living in a democracy. We won’t be living in a country where an entire identifiable group of people will be scapegoated and marched into gas ovens to die by the millions. We can’t believe that people will literally be starving to death on the streets of America. Especially us White People can’t believe it.
White People in general can’t believe that even if the Felonious Pussy Grabber is elected, we won’t be living in a democracy. White liberals have to really push themselves cognitively to get there. White media professionals won’t push themselves that hard because profits.
And, to some degree for most white people, we will be living in a democracy. It will just be a pseudo-democracy. They will blunt the cries of fascism and oligarchy with, I still vote. Doesn’t my vote matter? Just like they blunted the cries of Black lives matter with don’t white lives matter?
That is the power of cognitive dissonance. As long as white people are voting for somebody, then they can go to sleep at night and still be god-fearing, democracy-loving, patriotic Americans who live in the best damn country the world has ever known.
We can’t believer it, so we look for anything and everything else to distract us. Biden so old is just the latest thing. Because to look squarely at the threat to our democracy would mean that we might have to do something about it. We might have to risk our livelihood, our comfortable middle class status, challenge our beliefs, and make a change.
We all abhor taking a risk unless it is in the face of a sure loss. The cognitive dissonance of the moment is not to look at the sure loss of our democracy and tell ourselves that it isn’t really at risk.
That is what the debate did to Election 2024.
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Image Attribution
This image of Joe Biden was found on MROnline using a DuckDuckGo Creative Commons License search.
The Psy of Life 
This is going in an afternoon roundup, prominent placement; probably be live by the time you see this
Hi Jack … still running parallel tracks, been a while since I could fit something in
I’m also looking at new info re. my long time research into the effects of long-term mercury exposure across multiple generations. Also got someone’s attention with my question why did the Oregon Fish and Game Guide in 1997 stopped publishing the admonishment to anglers not to eat the fish because of high concentrations of mercury in the fish that they had published since 1937. Not expecting answer but am keeping a closer watch over my shoulder
‘Course, it still could be the Spirit of Cap’n Jack haunting the descendants of those who did him in …
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Howdy Ten Bears!
Yeah, it’s hard to fit everything you want to do into the time you have to do it in. It seems like the more free time I have the less time I have for the things that are important.
Your idea about mercury poisoning might not be far off the mark. Look at what it took for us to figure out the effects of lead poisoning and get it out of daily household products that we all come into contact with. And, we still have it in drinking water across the country, because too expensive and troublesome to be fixed.
Look at what’s happening in the Louisiana bayou’s in Cancer Alley where they tell people not to fish, but people do anyway, and they eat the tumorous fish they catch. No one knows for certain what the outcome of that will be, but we’re all pretty sure its going to be bad, so best not to draw too much attention to it.
All of these potentially severe environmental hazards that we’ve faced in “isolated” areas that produce cancer clusters and other problems have all been known about for decades by the people who’ve produced them. They just choose not to do anything about them because profits.
And, those who discount the Spirit of Cap’n Jack do so at their own peril.
Huzzah Sibling from Another Fling!
Jack
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I am worried that the videos of the Democrats saying JB can’t win are going to be used by MAGA to prove that the election was stolen if JB does win. None of these people have a solid plan B that could be executed in the limited time we have. Please put KH out there more so that people become more aware and comfortable with her if the time arises that she needs to take over. The two times that the VP had to take over (in my lifetime)we had little information about them. We don’t even know who DT is going to pick for his VP yet. I believe there is just as much a chance that DT will not finish the term as JB. Anyway, I wish these Democrats would stop talking to the press so they are not giving ammunition to MAGA.
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Howdy R!
They were going to claim the election was stolen no matter what, but I take your worry. I don’t know what these people are thinking or even if they’re thinking. How is this mess going to improve the likelihood that we’ll have a Democratic President come January 2025?
It’s enough to make you believe in conspiracy theories.
Huzzah!
Jack
PS Now, Trump’s been “shot.” How is that going to shake up the race?
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I’m working on a post about not talking to the press ~ about disengaging: not talking to or about any of them, do not engage. Let their words and actions speak
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Howdy Ten Bears!
I hear you there. Nothing good seems to come out of the press these days. It is all focused on making Trump as viable a candidate as they can. It makes no sense unless you view from the for-profit angle, then it makes perfect sense.
The problem with just letting their words and actions speak is that thinking is hard, so too many of us don’t and just accept what we read on social media as true. Shaping the narrative of the press ain’t something I can do, but if Lloyd Doggett can start the #BidenSoOld thing, then maybe I can influence the something in the press. Miracles can happen, brother.
Unfortunately, the billionaires are going to own us all here before too long, and it won’t matter whether we’re engage, disengaged, or gaged, we’ll just be paying a billionaire for the privilege.
Huzzah!
Jack
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A lot of people in America, especially comfortable White people, need to have spent the last 20 years reading dystopian Sci-Fi. In fact, I highly recommend learning to read on Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction, not Dick and Jane and other such literary pablum. Stretching the imagination is good. But, of course, the comfortable ones have different tastes in entertainment.
That difference in our response to the expected and the surprising is crucial. The response to Trump was “There he goes again.”, and to Biden it was “Oh, my God, we’re doomed.” And, the ground was well prepared by four years of the Right Wing propaganda machine aiming the “Poor Old Joe” images, memes, and commentary directly at Democrats and anybody leaning anywhere left of a MAGA hat. The MAGA base got the “Biden is a super villain qualified for a James Bond movie.” version instead.
Could it be that Joe’s prep team really thought the moderators would rein in Trump from the Gish Gallop and make it an actual debate instead of a cage fight?
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Howdy Bob!
You know how when you do something really important for the first time, you’re really carefully and paying attention to detail and trying hard to get everything right? Then the second time you do it, especially if the first time went well, you relax a little bit and let some of the key details slip because maybe you so focused on doing everything well the first time, you didn’t realize what was crucial to your success and what was just ancillary and maybe because you got a little cocky? You know how that goes. In 2020, the Biden election team was ON. They were hitting on all cylinders. This time round, they are relaxed a bit. I think, like me, they thought Trump would be the nominee, but his floor is his ceiling and there was no way he could actually pose a real threat. The battleground states would be close, but they would still win. It is partly the status quo bias, partly hubris, partly proportionality bias. They just weren’t as well prepared for the debate as they were the first time round.
I think proportionality bias — now that I thought of it just now — also underpins most of our reaction to Biden’s performance. A performance that bad had to be caused by something really big. That has to be dementia because availability heuristic, the R’s primed us all to be thinking about dementia and Biden.
You’re right about the personality characteristics that cluster. People who are curious, imaginative, open to new things read science fiction and fantasy-adventure type novels. People who are more closed to new things and more concrete in their thinking read more page-turner types that don’t want you thinking about the details too much.
The sci-fi crowd has to turn out for the election and Big Joe.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Proportionality bias is definitely involved. For many, jet lag, a cold, and getting gob smacked by the inability of the moderators to rein in a ranting lunatic just isn’t sufficient to explain that performance (which is actually not so bad if you read the transcript). And in that respect it is that list I just made that is the problem for those looking for a single cause because they avoid complexity and nuance.
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Howdy Bob!
The proper response to Biden’s debate performance was, that was bad, but it is still four months out, so it shouldn’t be a problem. How can we get the focus back on Trump’s dishonesty and incoherence?
I expect rank and file members of the electorate to look at it and be vulnerable to proportionality bias, but well-informed savvy politicians who are in the business of winning elections? They should be looking for ways of downplaying it all instead of inflating it.
I think part of the problem is that Dems have allowed themselves to panic at how unstoppable Trump seems without realizing that the operative term is, seems. He seems unstoppable, but he’s not. In fact, he’s a very weak candidate and the only way he wins is by making Biden seem weaker. They are playing into that narrative and they should know better.
Huzzah!
Jack
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There is a theme I hear in the panic response. There is the idea that it can or will be one critical event that makes all the difference. If that were true, Trump’s political life would have ended with the Access Hollywood tape. People, even in this sportified world need to remember that no baseball game is decided by one pitch. Maybe there is a sort of reverse proportionality bias in that.
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Howdy Bob!
Now it is the FOMO social media life for all of us. They are hoping that somehow some way the big dramatic rom-com moment when the protagonist declares their undying love for the leading love interest and stops them from making the biggest mistake of their life and they finally kiss and everyone claps, except the jilted mistake, and now they live happily ever after FOREVER at the end of the movie will occur here and they will be hailed as visionary heroes and elevated to the heights of political history with their one shrewd move that no body saw coming.
When you’re life begins to resemble a Mexican novella or KPOP drama, you know you’re living life wrong and when you’re politics start looking that way, you know the collapse isn’t far off.
In the moment of clearest choice yet in American history between democracy and oligarchy, we answer it with #BidenSoOld. We are good and truly fucked my friend.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Maybe we really are in The Matrix, except that it doesn’t matter which pill you take. Well, we’ve muddled through before, and maybe will again. We still have the Dobbs voters.
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The election is not a shoe in for Trump. It is now harder for Biden. It is now much more a base turnout election and a ground game election. The #BidenSoOld controversy has really fucked things up.
Jack
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It has. It is understandable that the long campaign by the GOP to sow doubt about Joe’s fitness would have gotten some worried, but I keep coming back to the thought that what really rattled people about the debate was that Trump was just louder and therefore seen as stronger. After that, confirmation bias took over and has dun amok.
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This is really so much Russian disinformation fueled panic. I still can’t get over Lloyd Doggett, bankbencher from Texas where being a Democratic Representative in the House isnt worth a bucket of warm spit, began this mess. WTF? The man has done nothing but collect his salary and vote the Democratic Party line for over twenty years, and he’s going to retire this way?
Jack
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I find myself disappointed and even angry about how quickly some dems are jumping ship, so to speak, after a single poor debate performance. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by it. Trump has been saying utterly ridiculous, incoherent, confused and very strange things for years and no one has seemed to pay much attention to it. Biden slips up one time and everyone now wants to abandon someone who’s been a pretty good president and who has been doing remarkably well handling a grueling, punishing schedule? Suddenly he is “too old” while Trump, who has been incoherent, confused, sometimes can’t even remember who is actually the current president of the country, and is really just as old as Biden, is somehow just fine?
People also conveniently forget that Biden is a stutterer. He’s struggled with that his whole life. So yes, his speech sometimes falters, he sometimes hesitates, etc. It isn’t because of dementia, it’s because of his speech impediment.
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Howdy Grouchy!
I’ve been monitoring the whole Dems are panicked!! And calling for the party to turn itself inside out and try ANYTHING!!! other than dance with the one what brung ’em thing and as the alternative non-mainstream press has started reporting, it really is only a few elected Democrats who are PANICKED REPENT THE END IS NEAR! And, most of it is self-serving crap, like Adam Schiff lining up behind Kamala Harris.
Status quo bias works in a lot of areas in our life. One of them is how do you campaign and run for office. Which issues do you focus on? We’ve never run a campaign focused on Save Our Democracy, well other than the 2020 campaign, and we won that one, right? so democracy saved, check. Now, back to our regularly scheduled lifestyle of living in the ways that we had become accustomed.
Between Trump, the #COVID19 pandemic, and climate change, no one is prepared to deal with what reality is throwing at us. We have a collective failure of the imagination here. The Dems that are panicked are panicked because they have no idea of how to deal with our situation, but they smell opportunity for self promotion and self gain.
The whole thing is really a terrible waste because it all just plays into Trump’s hands and the #GOPDystopian oligarchy plans otherwise known as Project 2025 and Agenda 47.
The electorate not doing their jobs for the past sixty years is the real culprit, but the media being for-profit really pulls everything right of center.
Huzzah!
Jack
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