A Cognitive Dissonance Campaign
The 2024 presidential campaign is genuinely one full of cognitive dissonance.
Eight years ago, I realized that the 2020s would be one of the most disruptive decades in history. As long-time readers of Evolutionshift know, I have written three books about the decade and have spoken about it since 2018.
[Here is the website about the 2020s: the most disruptive decade in history]
Once I decided to write this series back in 2018 – three books published, one to go – I knew that after the first book to set the stage, the second book would be about cognitive dissonance. I knew that this state of being and mind would be something a majority of people living through this disruptive decade would experience.
[In my last post I reminded paid subscribers that the free eBook download for this year is “The 2020s: A Decade of Cognitive Dissonance”].
In this post more than a year ago I wrote about Cognitive Dissonance for the first time. In that post were definitions:
“In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person’s actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress.
“Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argues that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe” -Wikipedia
And
“an uncomfortable mental state resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing some of the cognitions.” Dictionary.com“
Now, let’s focus on the last sentence of the excerpt from Wikipedia:
some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe”
Here are the two candidates for President of the U.S. and their respective views of the country last week.
Former President Trump
From the New York Times
“We’ve watched our country take a great beating over the last three years,” Mr. Trump told supporters on Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla. “And nobody thought a thing like this would be possible.”
“We’re a third-world country at our borders, and we’re a third-world country at our elections,” Mr. Trump said.
So, Trump consistently referred to America as a “third-world country.”
“Donald Trump stoked fears of a migrant-fueled crime wave at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, describing the United States under President Biden as awash in “bloodshed, chaos, and violent crime.” It was a near cut-and-paste from his CPAC speech last year, when he warned that the country was becoming a “lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare.”
President Biden
“Folks, I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is literally the envy of the world. Fifteen million new jobs in just three years — a record, a record. Unemployment at 50-year lows. A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses, and each one is a literal act of hope.
With historic job growth and small business growth for Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans, 800,000 new manufacturing jobs in America and counting.
Where is it written that we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world? We are. We will.”
I’ve been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways. We’ve already cut the federal deficit — we’ve already cut the federal deficit by over a trillion dollars.
Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history. Violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than 50 years. But we have more to do.
We have to help cities invest in more community police officers, more mental health workers, more community violence intervention.
America is rising. We have the best economy in the world. And since I’ve come to office, our G.D..P. is up; our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade.
Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. And I will always be a president for all Americans because I believe in America.
I believe in you, the American people.
You’re the reason we’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am now. So let’s build the future together. Let’s remember who we are.
We are the United States of America!
And there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.
God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Cognitive Dissonance
Trump says that America is a “third-world country”
Biden says that America has the “best economy in the world”
Trump says that America: “lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare.”
Biden touts: “Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history. Violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than 50 years”
As voters move toward the November election, their decision is what is the reality of America right now. If you think America is doing well and is the country leading the free democratic countries of the world then you will choose the Biden reality. If you think America is a third-world country that is crime-infested, then you will choose the Trump reality.
The issue is that once you decide which reality you see, you will only see that one. This is the polarity that has been widely discussed in the past decade. We have all seen dozens of interviews with decked-out Trump voters who revere the man. We have all seen dozens of interviews where Biden is touted by followers as having one of the best records since Truman or FDR.
Pick your reality!
It is hard to imagine that there is a large group of truly undecided voters left. There are, and there always have been, people who get invested as being undecided until the “go into the voting booth”. They will decide the election.
What do we know? People vote based on issues. People vote based on their own legacy thinking [ “my Dad and Mom were Republican and I am too” “I am a third-generation Democrat”] and people vote from emotions, how they feel about things.
Are they optimistic or pessimistic? Are they angry or happy? Do they feel America is ascendent or descendant? Do they feel more comfortable with the past or are they more excited about the future?
One of the reasons for this cognitive dissonance is that we are in a time of accelerating change. The speed of technological change is accelerating. When a transformative technology comes along it disrupts the existing reality. The telephone, the radio, the TV, the personal computer, the Internet, high-speed wireless, and now Technological Intelligence all changed what humans did and changed the reality in which they live.
In this disruptive decade of the 2020s – which started with Covid-19 – practically every part of our lives is in the process of changing. The ground is shifting underfoot. Depression is up. Suicides are up. Gun violence is up. People fundamentally resist change they don’t understand.
What reality will the undecided voters embrace? What is your reality?
Both campaigns will try to communicate their respective realities between now and the election in November. Who will win the undecided vote?
If it is based on feeling, my view is that Americans like being Americans and think that America is the greatest country in the world and will be in the future. That would point to Biden and his reality winning. Regardless, think of the 2024 election as having the greatest amount of cognitive dissonance in decades.