Guest Post by Scott Adams
I think we can all agree that there has been plenty of fake news coming from both sides. Fake news is usually intentional, although in some cases it is the result of honest mistakes. But lately we are seeing an entirely new type of untrue news. I call it Imaginary News. Here’s a good example from the Huffington Post.
I watched President Trump’s press conference with the alleged “meltdown,” and all I saw was Trump talking the way he normally talks. The Huffington Post watched and apparently saw some other set of circumstances. That means we have three possibilities to consider:
1. Huffington Post saw the situation accurately while I was hallucinating.
2. My version of events is accurate and Huffington Post hallucinated.
3. Both the Huffington Post and I were hallucinating.
When I was younger, I would have automatically assumed that I was right and the Huffington Post was either intentionally lying or deluded. My more mature understanding of the world is that most people are hallucinating most of the time. We live in our own personal movies. This is a perfect example. Millions of Americans looked at the same press conference and half of us came away thinking we saw an entirely different movie than the other half. Many of us saw Trump talking the way he normally does, and saying the things he normally says. Other people saw a raving lunatic, melting down.
Those are not the same movies.
So how can we know who is hallucinating in this case? The best way to tell is by looking for the trigger for cognitive dissonance. In this case, the trigger is clear. Trump’s unexpected win forced the Huffington Post to rewrite their mental movies from one in which they were extra-clever writers to one in which they were the dumbest political observers in the entire solar system.
You might recall that the Huffington Post made a big deal of refusing to cover Trump on their political pages when he first announced his candidacy. They only carried him on their entertainment pages because they were so smart they knew he could not win.
Then he won.
When reality violates your ego that rudely, you either have to rewrite the movie in your head to recast yourself as an idiot, or you rewrite the movie to make yourself the hero who could see what others missed. Apparently the Huffington Post chose to rewrite their movie so Trump is a deranged monster, just like they warned us. That’s what they see. This isn’t an example of so-called “fake” news as we generally understand it. This is literally imaginary news. I believe the Huffington Post’s description of the press conference is literally what they saw. If you gave them lie detector tests, they would swear they saw a meltdown, and the lie detector would say they were telling the truth.
There are two clues that the Huffington Post is hallucinating and I’m not. The first clue is that they have a trigger and I don’t. Reality violated their egos, whereas I was predicting a Trump win all along. My world has been consistent with my ego. No trigger. All I have is a warm feeling of rightness.
The second clue is that the Huffington Post is seeing something that half the country doesn’t see. As a general rule, the person who sees the elephant in the room is the one hallucinating, not the one who can’t see the elephant. The Huffington Post is literally seeing something that is invisible to me and other observers. We see a President Trump talking the way he normally talks. They see a 77-minute meltdown.
Disagree with you Scott, again.
“is seeing something that half the country doesn’t see”
“The Huffington Post watched and apparently saw some other set of circumstances”
No – HuffPo doesn’t care what actually occurs. They don’t see or hear anything of the Trump reality. Their liberal mission is to write negative against Trump. Period!
Scott,
You are too kind. Huffington Post writers may be intentionally
“hallucinating” as they may feel duty bound to betray the
opposition. All is fair in love or war.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Trump kick their asses and I enjoyed watching Trump enjoying it while doing it. And I know for a fact that I’m not insane. My mother had me tested.
the HP to me is as far left as one can get so every thing trump says will be wrong. the NYT’S HP, WP WSJ, and all the rest to me atre just not lier’s just not telling the truth.
Most people see and hear what they want to see and hear.
Leftists are particularly prone to this.
I’m going to go with another possibility:
4. They are paid to write bullshit.
I agree with Koko. They know goddamn well Trump aced them in that press conference. Along with the other above comments there is this:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair
The boys and girls of HP know if they don’t whistle the company tune they’ll be looking for honest work in a hurry.
There are no boys there, all female editorial team.
You can tell how truthful your remarks were when judging their impact on the Left, by the volume of irrate screaming.
Trump really, really gave them what for in a moment none will ever forget.
” My more mature understanding of the world is that most people are hallucinating most of the time.”
That’s just not true. Unless the word ‘hallucinate’means different things to different people, but now we’re heading into crazy town.
I think Scott meant “hallucinate” in a much broader way, not just the literally-seeing-a-pink-elephant-that-isn’t-really-there, citizenship-in-psych-ward-crazy-town way.
He’s saying that people who look at an event thru their lens, and that lens clouds their vision so bad that they interpret that event in a way that empirically didn’t happen, that’s also a type of hallucination.
I like Scott’s perspective. Always enlightening. Although I also agree with earlier posters: the libtard media is definitely paid to lie as well. I think it’s probably a combo of both.
It was a spectacle! Like a gladiator taking on 20 warriors and beating the crap out of them with their own weapons. And it was done with aplomb, no sweating, and humor. Then there was the self-deprecating comments mixed in with devilish self-promotion that came off rather charming instead of repulsive. During Trump’s campaign I could hardly stand to watch him speak with him reminding me of a carp. That round thing he does with his lips. Now he is more relaxed and his face is more like a bulldog readying for a easy win over inferior combatants. He makes points against Hillary that are so true, so obvious, and so under-reported by the very press sitting there with quickly beating hearts and the realization (in the best of them) that things are going to get worse for them as the public becomes more and more aware of the deliberate and inexcusable bias run riot in the fourth estate where they have lived and loved like lords commanding serfs to abide by the rules whereby the lords can forever feel superior and right, oh so right.
Imaginary News? No, deliberately deceptive news. See Alinsky… or Goebbels.
And
I believe this to be an excellent assessment and the actual engine behind fake news in the MSM.
However, whereas Scott appears to claim these people are simply “hallucinating”, I tend to believe they are “manipulating”. The former implies they are mistaken. The latter proves they know what they are doing and are, therefore, evil.
It’s a big difference, Scott.
Might be fun if Trump would reprise the ‘nickname’ gambit he used in the campaign like ‘Lyin Ted Cruz’ and ‘Crooked Hillary’ on the MSM. “Two Faced” Chuck Todd, “Fake News” Acosta, “Bozo’ Stefanopoulos etc.
So MSM has transcripts of Flynn’s conversation with the Russians. Don’t mean shit. CIA etc can fabricate phony transcripts easily and did exactly that.They had the full cooperation of their agents and fellow travelers in the media. This crap was all dreamed up by Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. Don’t believe any of their shit.
They are fighting for their very lives because the progressive era that began when the communists stole the progressive movement one hundred plus years ago has passed a major phase into the next one. Hold on to your hats as the snap back is going to be a real bitch…….
This shit is beneath Trump and unPresidential. He should just give his questions to the journalists he likes, ignore the others and move on. They’ll either figure it out then adapt & overcome or they won’t. Trump has bigger fish to fry than the media.
That is the single most important fish to fry.
Indent Service , I’ve been hearing Republicans say that shit for 25 damn years .All they are doing is making themselves appear weak and afraid.Then the leftist Progressives just walk all over these worthless son of a bitches.Trump is a fighter .He need to nail these so called media lackies ( traitors ) every chance he gets . Meathead.
Obama shut down the press .Gave very few press interviews took off golfing Regie, then put feet on desk .Then went on vacation. We all knew he was a puppet and a sham. Trump is no puppet!Nor a sham.Bravo Trump for calling out msm and giving interviews. Actually working at being president
Great article Scott. If the liberals/progressives read your article, they would claim that you were full of shit and that you were the one hallucinating.
I also know some liberals that couldn’t/can’t/won’t rewrite the movie in their head, it’s beyond them.
Typical leftist rubbish. Trump was in rare form. Nothing unusual at all.