“I don’t know it for a fact….I just know it’s true “ Bill Maher.

alandalay
Sep 15, 2024
2 min read

Since feelings have never been accepted as evidence in a court of law, perhaps we should investigate the reasons leading to those feelings. Here are some probable causes:

· Trump’s voters have been primed for voting fraud for a long time, since 2016 exactly. When you are repeatedly told that something will happen, the brain not only expects it but does not accept any possibility that it has not already occurred.

· Others did not get the memo that in a presidential election, it is common for the voting temporary results to flip overnight as mail-in-ballots start to be counted. Indeed, it must be disorienting to go to bed thinking that your candidate has won to wake up the next day, realizing that he has lost. This is called the “Red Mirage” and the “Blue Shift.” Nothing nefarious about it; it happens frequently. For some people, such a shift in reality is inexplicable and unbearable to accept.

· But probably the main reason for the “feeling” to persist is the persistent bombardment of echoes validating your beliefs. When The Big Lie has been embedded in your daily life for such a long time, you inhale it as your natural breathing, even if it is polluted air. In the end, your brain becomes mush and hermetic to any new information that could put into question your reality. In essence, this psychological state is similar to the one experienced by some people going through police interrogations. After being presented with false proofs and allegations and repeatedly told that somebody has committed a crime, nearly 30 percent of suspects finally admit to a crime they did not commit.

Unfortunately, all those probable reasons mean diddly-squat to “believers-by-feelings,” and any attempt to rationalize their beliefs becomes counter-productive since, to them, the more you attempt to deny that the election was rigged, the more they see it as evidence it was.

Trump’s “believers-by-feelings” should now adapt Bill Maher’s line to:

“The election was rigged. I don’t know it for a fact….I just know it’s true. “