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Is Cognitive Dissonance a Requirement to be a Republican These Days?
Why this concept is so relevant in our current political discourse and its role in keeping Trump in power
Leon Festinger coined the term “cognitive dissonance” in the late 1950s to describe the phenomenon in which someone holds two conflicting ideas and believes both of them to be true. The term has become incredibly relevant in the Trump era, as tens of millions of Americans extol a man who continuously contradicts himself. It’s not just the ex-president and his lemmings who are guilty of these mental gymnastics, but the actual policies themselves are contradictory, as well.
No one respects women more than Trump, yet he has over two dozen sexual misconduct allegations and even admitted to grabbing women by the genitals because of his celebrity status. He is the least racist person ever, yet he told four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from and referred to African nations as “sh**hole countries.” His supporters will even argue that comments like these do not make him a racist because it is true (believe it or not, I saw this argument on LinkedIn).
America has never been so respected before, except he insulted all our closest allies and threatened repeatedly to pull out of NATO. Trump…
