How could they forget Libya? The rise of ISIS?

Its remarkable how immune to reality that is.

Just when one thought that the level of self-deception and insanity couldn’t get any lower….

https://twitter.com/Furrystoat/status/811035343096979456

I’m not missing them yet, and don’t expect to. The country may still survive the Obamas. Too bad hope is gone (from Saint Michelle, so it must be so).

No, I don’t think there’s even 5% doubt in their sincerity.

OK. You know them better than I do. But I think someone who’s 95% sure and heavily suppresses the remaining 5% might come across as very certain. Maybe.

However, I didn’t idolize any politicians, and doubt very much that I would have idolized Obama, either.

Right. And I’ll bet you never thought even your most despised politician was working to bring back Jim Crow and lynching, either.

I don’t know if any of your friends is that far out on the extreme, but if they’re spouting such nonsense, there are only 3 explanations I can think of:

1) They say these things but don’t fully believe them, sweeping the 3% or 5% uncertainty under the rug.

2) There actually is something wrong with their rational/perceptual faculties; or

3) They’ve enclosed themselves in an echo chamber where no contrary opinions are allowed, creating a spiral where everyone eggs each other on to say increasingly outrageous things. In which case, there’s a weird Groupthink dynamic going on in which people say things parrot-like without ever actually engaging their critical reasoning to examine the content of what they’re saying. I suspect this would come across as absolute certainty.

So I’m a bit disturbing and there’s really no need to ask me too many questions because they don’t want to become more uncomfortable.

It’s funny; I was thinking about your situation and imagined exactly this, that you’re somewhat “disturbing” to your friends.

Excuse me for beating a dead horse. But could their discomfort be due to the fact that they know you’re intelligent, well-informed and un-bigoted, and therefore cannot be dismissed in the usual ways. Thus, perhaps they fear, deep down, that some of your “eccentric,” blasphemous ideas might actually be correct.

No, I don’t think there’s even 5% doubt in their sincerity.

I am going on several things here, and one is my memory of my own 20th Century political belief system, pre-political-change. I don’t recall having much doubt. However, I didn’t idolize any politicians, and doubt very much that I would have idolized Obama, either.

But why would a person doubt her own perceptions if nearly all (or maybe all) of her sources of information agreed? And that includes virtually everyone she knows?

Of course, they know me and I don’t agree. But I don’t think they really want to know too much about what I think, because I believe I make them a bit uncomfortable because it’s hard to pigeonhole me. I think they know I’m not a bigot (although they probably suspect that deep down I MUST be, or how else could I be a conservative?). And I think they believe I’m intelligent and they know I’m well-informed. So I’m a bit disturbing and there’s really no need to ask me too many questions because they don’t want to become more uncomfortable.

I think the way they deal with it is by saying to themselves that I’m just kind of eccentric.

I don’t find it all that odd that they don’t read my blog. I certainly don’t expect everyone I know to read it; that would be the odd thing, if I expected it. Especially when most of them don’t do that much online reading and are not into blogs in general or getting their news online.

Most of them are quite busy, as well. They tend to listen to NPR in the car; that’s a big source of information for them.

Also, I think there’s a tendency to not want to read information that favors the right. This is not unlike the fact that most people on the right don’t spend a lot of time at blogs on the left, either. As I said, though, my friends/acquaintances don’t read blogs at all, for the most part, even those on the left. They don’t eat, breathe, and sleep politics, either.

The real tip-off was when they said he was “scandal-free.”