Like just about everyone else who’s not in the Trump cult or not paying attention – there’s a disturbingly large number of the latter out there, I’m afraid – I’m hoping for a soul-crushing landslide loss for Trump.
Not that I hate Trump, but because that would be good for the United States and would burn down a Republican Party that has become a festering sore on the hide of the United States.
So, let’s assume that happens. If I could only have one lesson learned from this entire four year debacle by the electorate, what would it be?
It turns out that’s an easy question for me. It’s this:
Candidates for office who rely on magical thinking will be ignored and disdained by the American electorate.
I’ve talked about magical thinking before, and gave an informal definition here. After perusing definitions on the Web, I’m going to ignore them as too timid, and update my definition thusly:
Magical thinking consists of determining conclusions and positions based on religious or ideological assumptions, and then ignoring, misinterpreting, or otherwise abusing evidence that is not congruent with those conclusions and positions. This will also include fabrication of false evidence, claims of conspiracies without evidence, proclamations of divine interventions without diving fingerprints, and various other forms of dishonesty and delusion.
In other words, reality comes first. A promising candidate is someone who can earnestly promise that the positions they hold are based on current information, reasonable assumptions of human nature as well as mother nature, and is contingent on further information being presented.
That’s my hope for the learning process of the electorate. What’s your hope?
