Having studied the intersections of social connections, culture, politics and DC systems, and after a long careful review of our current state of being, I have come to a conclusion that sets the conversation around the Thanksgiving dinner table in 2024.
I earnestly believe that in the USA, on a social and political level, there are two group assemblies in a transitional period of dynamic opposition to each other.
♦ Those who pretend.
♦ Those who do not pretend.
There are republicans and democrats who pretend, and there are democrats and republicans who do not pretend.
My contention is that what we call “MAGA” is a larger assembly of the non-pretending group. Hence, the cross-party/cross-cultural cross-over, and what is often called the division in our nation.
Discuss…
Posted in President Trump
It would seem that most democrats are pretenders, especially the ones who know what the democrat platform is and the rest vote without thinking because of tradition.
The part I really despise is when the pretenders try to force me into believing the pretend. Otherwise I mostly would ignore them.
Covid and transgenderism being just the latest examples. We all have our own list.
Yeah, everything the Dems promote.
Those people are known as morons.
To pretend one must have and ignore knowledge. The vast majority of the Demonic party voters do not have this knowledge; thus, they are not pretending. The majority of the Demonic party politicians have the knowledge. They are not pretending, however. They are just plain evil.
I feel like more and more Democrats were genuinely blind to any alternative viewpoints and they are in a process of waking each other up.
The people who are really stomping all over my nerves are the Republicans who switched because they were too insecure to take the heat for supporting Trump at the height of TDS. Now these fair weather Trump fans want to pretend they were blind when they were really just trying not to be rejected by the cool kids.
Maybe the pretenders do so as a means to acquire money as an actor does.
While we non pretenders just want the Truth, damn the consequences.
When we have the Truth,we can make decisions on how to deal and live with it, change it.
ALL I WANT IS THE TRUTH!!!
The Truth will set you free
And that right there is why I am not a pretender, I do know the Truth, Jesus Christ, and He has set me free.
I think the pretenders do it because they want it to be true. Just like my oldest claims that God doesn’t exist. He knows better, but he really wants it not to be true.
MAGA is less doctrinaire than the GOPe–look at the “strange bedfellows” that united in November to return Trump to the White House….RFK, Jr., Tulsi, Musk, Rogan, and many others united behind a banner of putting aside perceived differences and uniting to work for the common good.
Trump has included them into forming a government, and the coalition that formed on November 5 hasn’t splintered or started to act philosophically territorial.
MAGA is more than a movement, it’s a new political philosophy that brings us closer to the way that things were before we were dragged into an identity politics civil war.
(Somebody tell the Dims that a coalition that demands everyone support every crackpot movement within the coalition 110% is not a coalition, it’s a marriage of convenience, and just as strong as its weakest member.)
Well put.
It’s a cult. Drink the Kool-ade and wait for the asteroid,
Oh yeah, it was a comet. Same concept.
The Covid brouhaha was the Great Reset. It changed everything in the USA. Many lost their businesses, jobs, their kids lost 2 years of education, the crazies in the Dem Party took over, stole an election and gave us the finger. That caused a snap back nobody expected culminating in the election just passed. Now we are in limbo, waiting for Jan 20th.
The Left stole Christmas from me. I just want it gone and Trump in officebso we can be safe again.
I am sure I am not alone and I am filled with resentment for all they took from me and mine. I am not pretending the last four years didn’t happen. I won’t forgive the RINOs who helped the Democrats do this to us.
No, you are not alone. There are many tens of millions of us from all walks of life, and even from outside this country who are with you.
Right On! I won’t forgive either. To do that would be unfaithful to all the voters wanting to change a corrupt government.
Left Reps over their duplicitous treachery against me. Now am an Independent. Gave no money to Republicans. Spit.
Absolutely, the RINOs … History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes, again and again and again, as it has since the dawn of human civilization because hindbrain human behavior has not changed.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through…all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
The RINO’s are disgusting vile creatures.
I am convinced the RINOs wanted Trump gone in 2020 so they could get back to ante status quo uniparty governance. They thought Biden was one of them…and he was until he wasn’t (got elected). Then he gave THEM the finger too. That’s why they didn’t go along with 2020 repeat. Now watch them try to subvert Trump as they did his first term. It already started with Gaetz so now they have moved on to Pete. If they get him, it will be Tulsi then RFK. They are snakes.
Kids lost two years of education, and more: two years of impaired neurological and social development. They will have, to some extent, a lifelong deficit.
The non pretending is really the glue that will hold our Country together along with the historical coalition that President Trump forged from the many elements that wanted the same results.
No, it’s a cult.
Sundance, you’ve created a conundrum for me:
See, the only discernible way for me to prove you wrong, when I believe you to be right is to pretend that you’re wrong…which would only serve to prove your point…and it’s not something I’m willing to do anyway.
But even though pretending such things isn’t an option for me, I know there are lots of people who would be willing to do it…if there was something in it for them.
Such people are pretentious and regularly use pretense to lay claim to being smarter, wiser, braver and all-around better than the facts warrant. I don’t know any of these people personally because most of them are working for MSNBC, CNN or Politico.
And I’d wager there isn’t a MAGA supporter in the bunch!
Prove me wrong!
Sorry the link is so long. It’s a twitter embed from whatfinger with a great quote from Dostoevsky.
https://x.com/DylanoA4/status/1861748081265463690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1861748081265463690%7Ctwgr%5E4d795e0e458e30259bec855360663261c1c7f9f3%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frevolver.news%2Fnewsfeed%2F
Revolver not whatfinger.
“The man who lies to himself is more easily offended than anyone.”
One of my favorite lines from the Dostoeevsky quote you sent me. The who quote really does dovetail with the pretending subject matter. Thanks for sharing!
Who’s the guy in the picture?
The Man in the Arena.
Our treasured landlord 😍
Take a rough guess. 😉
He who dances with the Sun. 😆
Robert Redford without his brains slung out?
It seems there are those who accept realism and those who live in fantasy. To pretend is to know the truth but act in a fashion opposite. In fantasy there is no actual knowledge but rather a blind belief. To a realist, non-pretender if you will, the glass is neither half empty not half full. Its a half glass of liquid. Prove you wrong. I wouldn’t even try. That’s my opinion anyway.
Now that the election is over, those who were pretending life was a bowl of cherries before, refuse to accept defeat and they are STILL PRETENDING IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
My comment is based on personal experience with my brother, a radical liberal. He refuses to discuss it and is rather forbidding about it. He will never thank we conservatives for it either.
His hatred of President Trump is rabid and he can’t say why. The (Kamala and Biden) dems are calling for resistance (now) and they will forment the violence they craves. She is a disgusting abomination and so is Biden. JMHO
Dixie, how can your brother be my brother? Are you my sister? By the way, my brother is in major depression.
I could be your sister “from another mother”?……….:cool:
Sorry about your brother. maybe his life will get better under President Trump and he’ll realize it.
My brother is not in depression….he’s just ignorant.
They are not really pretending. Out of desperation, they are attempting to hold together the pretend milieu of political identities theCobbled together into their pretend coalition built on a mud foundation of lies. They are desperately trying to convince themselves that many people have not awakened to the false premises and facades they papered over their lies in they used in çoʻnvincing the deluded into thinkìng the Marxist UTOPIA was just one stolen election away. Evil is quietly sèeking it’s next path forward while fearing the appearance of a white horse.
He’s not religious in any way but I am a Christian and I’m ready for anything TPTB dish out before President Trump’s inauguration. I have no fear of death at all.
Used to be those who refused to accept reality were locked up in insane asylums. Now the whole fricking establishment rejects reality. They must go the way of the dodo bird.
Those who know there is a God and those who pretend there is not.
Our magnificent Declaration of Independence and Constitution are built upon rights bestowed upon humanity by God. The pretenders fill their minds with a manufactured value system. Today’s mindless value system for the pretenders is wokeism.
This –> “manufactured value system”
Real division is between those who accept and believe the Bible, and only the Bible, is the preserved Word of God, and those who pretend otherwise, in the church and outside the church.
I am not going to pretend that MAGA will last past Trump’s presidency.
Why didn’t we get a MAGA 50+ seat win in the House in ’24?
Trump has 6-12 months before his legislative agenda is blocked in toto by the GOP.
Remember, at the mid-terms of the last Trump presidency House members quit in large numbers to throw control to the dems. That is likely to happen again.
In my extended family, “oh, I don’t know” is the preferred statement of resistance by members who pretend.
“I don’t know,” as in “I don’t want to know” even though they damn well do know.
I agree with you. The Truth can be very painful to people who are not immersed in its principles.
AMEN! In this case, it stems from a selfish unwillingness to exercise basic civic awareness, which requires sustained effort and a high level of pain tolerance, which not everyone has.
Even when I push through the pretending they inevitably fall back to “can’t do anything about it anyway!”
However, for family members who are unhappy about the Trump win, my inevitable response will be: “Oh, I don’t know. Can’t do anything about it anyway.”
Love to be a fly on the wall when you dish these out!😉
Indeed. This took you a while to state this, but I imagine you’ve been thinking about it for a while. I think it has to do with a great fear response. Some people need the approval of the herd and will play pretend like a professional so that they keep up in the game.
It’s disgusting to see people disgrace themselves like this. It’s as if there’s no one thinking because they need the herd to think for them. Sad.
2 Solitudes – Pretending/Non Pretending.
Canada has 2 Solitudes.
Canada has Quebec (Conquered) and it is like another country. They elect a Separation Party and whine about everything.
We have 2 languages
( Thanks to Evil Cultural Marxist Pierre Trudeau).
FILTHY LIBERALS.
DEI involves a lot of pretending.
There’s a study reported in the Washington Examiner that proves diversity, equity, and inclusion has made society more divisive and meaner — mean enough to accept Hitlerian terms when describing out-groups and seeking to exact revenge on perceived oppressors. Common sense, yes, but now supported by research.
The election has brought a sharp reversal. The Democrats and RINOs are now the out group…
And the photo below is Sundance’s thinkng spot.
These days, the phrase “I identify as” really means “I pretend to be.”
I look for people with the ability to change their minds when presented with the real facts. There aren’t that many now.
Pretend to know… pretend to understand… pretend your information source is complete. Rely on someone else feeding you information. It’s so easy to digest. Why bother thinking or imagining … it’s so hard to test, compare, research/ I gots games to play and bffs to text on my phone
It is the rare person indeed who can watch in excess of ten hours daily television and know instinctively the level of pretending that people such as me live in perpetuity who haven’t watched television more than five hours of television per annum this millennia. It is I who should sit and absorb the ramifications of perpetual propaganda to obtain and maintain the ability to truly understand what is going on in this world. Much like being jabbed constantly would make me much, much healthier.
Rod Serling couldn’t make this up. But here I am. It is bliss to be alone (with God) at Thanksgiving. I am thankful for that.
We have not had “a television” in our house in more than 30 years. I do not miss it, and never have. When I want to watch “video,” I buy it, “commercial free.”
We enter a hotel room where the TV is already turned on, and we switch it off – never to turn it on again.
It’s just the way we roll. And, I like it.
Maybe the TV and so much other media have trained us to “suspend disbelief”.
It’s not a far leap to expect this pretending practice, many hours a day, creates a habit in many to treat presentations of information as reliable, and not question the “rest of the story”.
There are likely several or many explanations for pretending.
You are pretending now.
It is not bliss to be alone and I know that for a fact. God is my close companion but He doesn’t discuss things with me.
I need people; you apparently don’t. Regardless, A blessed thanksgiving to you.
Yes, it’s time to move.
I agree Sundance. But it’s always been that way, at least from where I came from and what I was taught by my parents.
They were not college educated but, lived in reality and knew that they were only going to succeed through their hard work and clear thinking determination.
Their parents did come to America for their dreams to come true, to live freely and make a successful life together until they died.
My parents were active in the community, church and politics. They didn’t agree with everyone, all the time, in their political party, but we were always taught to respect others and to think independently, using the brains God gave us.
My Father’s job was tied to politics. Workers often times changed parties after an election just so they could keep working. Believe me when I say “The Griswold children were taught tough life lessons every.single.day and we survived; we even thrived in good years!”
Accepting the Truth of Life is not an easy task.
I recall how I was looked down upon and laughed at when I was spouting off my opinion of the Globalists’ Utopian Plans, as it was laid out in state resolutions and laws, prior to my retirement. The predictions I made came true. Anyone with an average IQ and common sense would have made the same predictions because it was the truth..
It’s the same today, only it’s much worse because now it involves the countries around the world.
Perhaps this time around, the majority are more awake and see what lies ahead in the future if we continue to open our borders to those who will not assimilate, speak our language, learn and love our history and expect their “fair share” to be handed to them via any means necessary.
Socialism always fails.
I have no interest in maintaining optics for the sake of propriety any longer. I now realize that this margin is the space that the real crooks operate within, and I’ll give them cover no more. We need to accept hard truths in blunt fashion if we have any chance of correcting our civilization.. and yes, it’s civilizational.
May God Bless my fellow Treepers and a very Happy Thanksgiving all!
True freedom.
Look, everything is about God. When one views issues through that lens, things come into focus.
Pretenders, whatever their political designation, are not comfortable with truth. Non-Pretenders are.
I think reconciliation is a better way to describe to view this relationship with truth.
Why I say this? All of God’s efforts before and after Calvary were efforts to provide a path for humanity to choose reconciliation with himself as he cannot change his nature.
Likewise, we cannot change transcendent and objective truths. But, we can come to terms with them and not be in conflict with the natural order of our reality and potentially be all the better off for it.
The powers that be have done all they can to divide us, to set one group against another.
In that, they succeeded as far as the division part is concerned.
We…those of us who simply wanted to be left alone…have seceded from the rest.
Not what they expected, but that is what has happened.
We are MAGA, a force to be reckoned with.
Funny how life works…right?
Remember that this is a fundamental Marxist strategy. But also, “a nation divided against itself.”
Yes it is, Mike. In the end, failed every time it has been tried throughout history.
Yes, and I really do not believe it is Republican vs. Democrat in the traditional sense of what the two parties used to represent.
Both parties have gone to hell in a hand basket — IMO. They swapped who represented the working class. However, they have equally sold out (minus a few exceptions).
Personally, I loathe two-faced Rinos as vehemently as I do woke jackass Demon-crats. The end results of their failures are equally destructive.
MAGA must strengthen and consume the Republican party. It is America First from now on.
It is not merely the Crenshaws, Grahams and McConnells. who need to be driven out.
Cruz is unreliable. John Kennedy, despite his humor, is inconsistent in how he votes. They either step up, or get voted out of office. I don’t give a damn about pontification and proclamation. Stop!
It isn’t party. It is wrestling the power away from the unelected in government, and those elected who are (AIPAC) lobbyist controlled. Currently, that is almost everyone holding an office.
I really identified with the tea party which morphed into MAGA. This has to extend beyond Donald Trump. He fathered the movement. (God bless him.)
MAGA needs to extend well beyond this presidential term. We have to take our country and freedoms back.
I think that until a person starts to recognize that “something is wrong” and “my life keeps getting worse” AND also begins to wonder why the worsening keeps happening even though they vote for people who claim that they will fix the problems THEN and only then will they begin to even progress towards Truth and non-pretending.
I have a friend and her husband who have Stage 4 TDS. They hate PDJT because they watch The View, MSNBC, CNN and read the NYT. They are terrified of the Trump Presidency because “he’s a rapist, he hates women, he filed for bankruptcy 6 times, and a felon”.
In the same breath, they think that the illegals should be deported and no one be allowed into the USA for 10 years. They want to own a gun without interference from the government. They recognize that jobs, industries, and money have all been stolen from Americans.
But they are so consumed by the lies and propaganda that have been fed them for nearly 10 years.
I told them to give PDJT 6 months and reassess their opinion of him and his policies (which they seem to not know any of them).
I do not think that they are pretending. I think that they are brainwashed. We shall see.
My personal experience with people who watch The View, MSNBC, CNN and who read the propaganda in the New York Times and The Atlantic is that it is all music to their ears. For these people, what is seen and heard in these media outlets is political and cultural pornography.
In other words, it is a pleasurable dopamine drug which stimulates their need for believing themselves morally and intellectually superior to their inferiors — a list of inferiors which includes the entire MAGA movement in general; and among the numerous liberal partisans within my own extended family, me in particular.
it is a pleasurable dopamine drug which stimulates their need for believing themselves morally and intellectually superior to their inferiors
I agree. my brother thinks he is morally and intellectually superior to me and I am inferior. He’s wrong.
haha….he asked me yesterday, “what is DEI” I told him. He said, “I figured you’d know.” He meant that as an insult.
They are mesmerized. You are correct. 🎯 It is like the consumption of a narcotic.
They are plugged into the matrix, and not making informed judgements.
When conversations at dinner briefly turned “political,” I simply found somewhere else to be for a little while. Fortunately, the conversations did not last long.
I break it down into those that have wisdom and discernment (about 20%), those who are simply clueless (about 40%), and another 40% who are deceived and/or flat-out liars.
The first instance happened in the Garden Of Eden when Eve believed the serpent. Call it Original Sin or perhaps Human Nature. That explains why it’s so galling.
It’s not the demonrats…..
and it’s not the retardicans…..
It’s not the deep state, the mic,…..
the media, and/or the corporations…..
I believe it’s the bankers/money.
A good research site…..
TheSerapeum.Com…..HIS Story.
It isn’t those who pretend or not pretend. It’s the ones that are blackmailed and the ones that are not blackmailed
my brother and his family are pretenders…they pretend the Dummycrats are the party they used to be. They pretend the truth of what they are today is not what it is …they pretend….but they also know they are wrong. It is easier to pretend than face the truth.
Subset. We who do not pretend do nothing but pretend during work hours for fear of early retirement
Those that pretend will continue on that path as long as it feels a safe place . The American experiment is a rough and unforgiving place to live in it’s pure sense. so pretenders will always be there accepting just about anything to “feel “ there with the Hurd on the right side .
Nope. Tryptophan coma. No thinking allowed. 😎
Wow! Will you just look at those shoulders??💜💜
The political left is at it’s core, narcissistic. They aren’t the only ones, of course, and we all have a little to much “self-esteem” at times. Bottom line: The left wants your life to be about them. They care what you do, care what you think, care who you are, but definitely, do NOT care about how you feel. (Feelings they reserve for themselves, because they are the “good guys” who count.) They are the “born to autocrat” types.
After four, no at this point, after FOURTEEN years of America being all about them, I don’t want to hear or think about them anymore. Pretender, no-pretender, or bullsh*t-ender, I don’t care. Just stay out of my face, out of my life, and leave my family alone.
Totally agree!
Yes in politics the real MAGA group are non-pretenders….
However there are many who are PRETENDING to be MAGA!!
😂🤣
My immediate family/extended family has been divided since the mandates/vaxed/unvaxxed bullshit.
The division lines, then immediately overflowed onto personal beliefs on politics, religion, gender and abortion.
The pretenders fit all the typical boxes of progressives Dems and victims. But what’s really sad is that the more their paycheck depends on Democrats for job preservation, the harder they pretend.
Here is a breakdown of us: Boomers Pretenders-4 Non Pretenders -2
Gen X 2 4
Millennial 8 8
Gen Z 1
totals 14 15
That’s the first time I have seen the exact numbers. Wow.
Scott Adams calls it the people who believe the news is real, and those who realize it’s fake.
I have yet to meet a non-pretending democrat. Libertarians, independents and Republicans have a distribution of both. But there are a lot of democrats, so there could be some non-pretending ones.
You cannot be proven wrong, because human nature is center right. As a species we’d never would have become the apex species without it. The conservative message resonates at the human and spiritual level as does the teachings of Christ. MAGA is simply an acronym for general common sense. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s really that simple.
Great work and insights as usual SD.
I respectfully suggest you eventually follow Catturd’s example and insert a picture with you looking at the camera. It’s only a suggestion of course and whatever you choose is certainly OK with your long time readers. Continuing the suspense is also OK but it might be time to finally receive praise more personally for all the years of hard work you’ve given to help P Trump get elected and for the USA to survive intact and to flourish.
This may be a hard sell, but “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4.
The Body of Christ, the Church, of which Jesus is to be the Head, only comes to maturity and fullness as we embrace all of the equipping ministries: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Ephesians 4.
We are told the church is to be built on the foundation of apostles and prophets. Speaking in general terms, we have a kind, gentle and anemic church built and maintained by pastors appealing to people – hoping to keep them coming back for more next week. (Please don’t misunderstand, there is both paradox and nuance there – not a blanket concemnation of the church)
The kind and gentle church does not want to address the Covid lies and power grab that led to a stolen election – and an enormous amount of death and suffering.
The kind and gentle church suggests we stay sweet or stay out of political debate and dialog. The kind and gentle church struggles to understand essential points of separation and connection in matters of civil and spiritual law.
I’m NOT saying everyone who doesn’t like Trump is unsaved. I’m NOT saying Trump is the Messiah.
I’m saying the church would do well to reorient itself with a plurality of leadership giftings and embrace this moment of history. Either way, Jesus is Lord and all will be well for those who believe and are converted.
I would submit our children and grandchildren however, will have a much better future if we can sieze the day and fight for radical reformation in government, education, culture and yes, religion. (The pure type only God himself can accurately define for us).
One last passage about the man born blind…
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
John 9:35-41
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a place that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness.
1821–81), (Dostoevsky); Russian novelist; Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. His novels reveal his psychological insight, savage humor, and concern with the religious, political, and moral problems posed by human suffering. Notable works: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
I have said for 30 years, often to my wife’s family, that I don’t do pretend. They are all MAGA now, except 2 female cousins.
Speaking of the pretending group around the Thanksgiving dinner table,
“So apparently the people who voted for the ‘I will protect women whether they like it not,’ childless woman should have no rights, Haitians had eaten your pets gang are the real victims despite their guy winning the election, in fact, they are now the modern-day equivalent of Rosa Parks, we’re told by a white comedian. Civil Rights heroes, the lot of them.”
“The rest of us among the 73 million Americans who voted not to have fascism, autocracy, mass deportations, internment camps and economy-crushing tariffs are the bad guys, the segregationists of our time. If we hold on, let me check my notes, yes I don’t want to have turkey dinner with the people screaming your body is my choice.”
“Make your own dinner, make your own sandwiches, wipe your answer tears, troll amongst yourself with Elon and leave us alone.”
“The president you dream of and worship instead of Jesus, and the time you didn’t have to storm the Capitol or issue death threats to poll workers. See, you did it by voting this time; congrats. You got your way, and he got away with breaking the law, yay, but if you expect the 73 million who voted for the prosecutor, not the felon, and particularly the 92% of black women who voted for Kamala to give you a cookie for your vote, a trophy, a hug, a high-five, you might be asking too much.”
“If we want to eat with you, we will, but if we want some peace over the holidays and we don’t want to put up with your trolling while we eat our turkey, get over it. Stop acting like we owe you. Stop whining. It’s embarrassing. Our Thanksgiving our choice.”
MSNBC Reid Out host, Joy Reid
The illusioned vs the disillusioned.
The pretenders / illusioned want to believe in the things they believe, but hardly spend any effort in trying to understand them. I knew a hard core leftist that had very strong opinions but would always say that she doesn’t know much. She believed in the slogans and through that’s what make her good. She wasn’t pretending.
It’s like she picked a team to follow, then believed anything she was told, didn’t really try to understand the issues but thought very strongly in the things she was told. She was the illusioned. Brainwashed. Dissonant.
It was very hard to hold a conversation, because she didn’t know much. Even if you proved to her one of her beliefs was wrong and why, she would go back to that belief the next day.
Once you start understanding the world, you become disillusioned, because it looks nearly impossibly to right the wrong. Even with Trump won, it’s very hard to believe things and the whole mountain of corruption and millions of corrupt people would be fixed. I see seemingly normal people in Arizona justifying to themselves why stealing elections or jailing their opponents is fine. How do you surpass that unclimbable hill? It’s probably the issues humans have faced for millennia. Until the Nazis were destroyed, they were, internally, unbeatable.
So the non-pretending people, to me, are the disillusioned. Disillusioned with the world. They can leave their best life, but still be disillusioned with something they know is nearly unbeatable.
Like Ying and Yang, Good and Evil, forever fighting. Never ending.
What best we can hope for, is to maintain a similitude of freedom, because that’s the minimally acceptable level that leads to happiness… I don’t think America was ever at the place we think it was. There were people who took what they wanted, and people who worked hard to get what they wanted. Unless you’ll have aliens or robots watching your every move, you’ll always get both types of people.
Why? Even the best of people become the worst of people in certain circumstances. You can never extirpate evil. But, the fight against it… that’s what gives life meaning.
I’m unsure what we are to discuss here. It is after Thanksgiving dinner and we are napping, walking, playing with dogs and kids and me on the computer. So, we don’t discuss much at table. Mostly it ‘s please pass the turkey or green bean casserole or the like. When we get to desert with coffee we talk about our stuff like whether the river will flood or who lost a tooth and how much he got for it. The men talk about going fishing or hunting or price of timber and we gals about who is having a baby and planning a shower. I got complimented on my chestnut stuffing.
We don’t know any democrats. Don’t let them on the place. and if that photo is you, Sundance, your shoes are very clean?
Guess that’s why I didn’t fall for the Russia collusion scam nor the scamdemic. I don’t pretend.
Pretenders is a good descriptor to identify those who have to pretend that they do not know the truth. They pretend that they do not know that Pres Trump cannot by himself send millions to internment camps. They pretend to not know that a fully functional woman, id-ing as a man, is still a woman when she has a baby. They pretend to not know that a volleyball player with a penis and testicles is a man. And voters prtend that they do not know that they are voting to continue the desperate shape of our country when they vote Democrat.
The only group not mentioned, is a third group. The group too stupid to know what’s good for them.
Hence, the idiocracy.
Those who are unhappy pretend they are happy.
Those who are happy do not need to pretend.
Happiness is contagious. Spread it around!
I really don’t believe that most of them are pretenders. I think it is more deniers. They have no idea of what is going on in the world and totally detach themselves from any conflict that the MSM doesn’t report. They don’t want facts, truth, or data. They want to live in a shell they believe is safe. They will never change. I have two sisters in their 70’s that enrage me, but I keep sending links that tell different stories from what the constantly hear. God Bless Everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving!
♦ Those who do not pretend never have to say they are sorry.
♦ Those who pretend never will.
There is a video pertinent to this topic just uploaded of former top CIA analyst Ray McGovern talking about the lies of Cheney and early neocons used to start the Iraq war and how no one called them out and this was the START of the lying culture we’ve seen since. It’s on Judge Napolitano’s youtube channel.