The Answer is Obvious

From The Week, unable to fathom how Trump is managing to get as many votes as he is. (h/t Bill Quick).

The Republicans really are gearing up to nominate one of the most polarizing figures to emerge in modern American politics. They are doing this despite the fact that he fails many supposed litmus tests for the nominee. And even when general election polling has him as one of the weaker candidates left in the Republican field. For conservatives, it is as if the law of gravity were suddenly reversed. The party once functioned according to litmus tests. These tests were often the source of the conservative commentariat’s perceived power. The number of hoops Mitt Romney had to jump through in 2012 was the proof of this power.

It’s puzzling, innit?

Not really. You see, the thing is, voters have now seen loser after loser “jump through the hoops” of the litmus test election cycle after never-ending election cycle, passing all of the tests only to turn out to be the same spineless, Prozi Lite surrender monkeys as all of the previous losers.

So nobody gives a shit about the litmus test anymore. As a matter of fact, thanks to decades of GOPe “Fake it ‘Till You Make it” charades followed by endless betrayals (I swear, honey, this time it’ll be different!), “jumping through the hoops” has become a distinct liability.

Even, sadly, for candidates who aren’t actually faking it.

Speaking of faking it, Romney is actually a perfect example of how “passing the litmus test” can be a liability. Nobody with a brain doubted for a second that he was faking it with his “severely conservative” nonsense. He was just checking off boxes. That didn’t help him with the smart set, the legitimately smart set, not the self-proclaimed “smart” middling intellects on the chattering right, we can assure you of that.

And now it’s spread to a wider demographic. A yuge demographic, if you’ll pardon us saying so.

Every single time a candidate delivers an obvious “what the dumbasses want me to say” boilerplate answer, they lose support. “They’re just more of the same”, is the response, “telling us what they think we want to hear, thinking that we’ll be dumb enough to fall for it again.”

To the point where a large segment of the American population will actually flock to the candidate who says whatever he wants to, even if it’s something they don’t necessarily agree with, because “at least he’s honest.”

So there’s your explanation. Right in front of your ignorant face. You’re welcome. We’ve been doing this our entire life. Step 1: Open your eyes. Step 2: See what IS, rather than what you THINK is. Step 3: Accept the logical conclusion right in front of you, even if you don’t like it or it “doesn’t make sense” to you. Especially then. Because when your brain is telling you, after careful analysis, that something you really didn’t want to be a fact does, indeed, appear to be a fact, it’s even MORE likely to be right.

It’s when you’re seeing what you expect to see and want to see that you need to be very, very careful about your reasoning.

Thatisall.