FRDH Podcast

America 2017: Magical Thinking vs Reality

America in 2017: was the story of Magical Thinking vs Reality. For Trump voters it was a confirmation of everything their “unbiased” news told them. For the anti-Trump brigade it was believing too many of the rumors they saw on twitter. Reality was the victim in this car crash. 2017 challenged the very notion of a fact-based, mutually acknowledged reality that is essential for creating a stable society. Finding facts on social media like twitter became impossible. Twitter is about Outrage Outrage Outrage. It was like outrage had become a form eroticism. Makes me feel so good to feel so outraged.
Back in pre-history, when the second President Bush was prematurely swaggering about victory in Iraq, his dark angel, Karl Rove told the New York Times, “we create our own reality.” Liberals – here defined as all those who didn’t vote for Bush and a lot of people who did – shook their heads at Rove’s arrogance. This group proclaimed it was part of the reality based community. And as nemesis followed hubris and Iraq and then the economy disintegrated on Bush’s watch this group congratulated itself for sticking with reality.
But this same group was now ignoring facts and indulging in magical thinking. Trump wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what was proclaimed on twitter and in the opinion columns of the mainstream media. Wishful thinking or magical thinking is not reality-based thinking … that is how Trump had changed his opponents. And it’s one of the most important aspects of 2017 in America.