How Trump’s “Alternate Facts” AND the Arguments About Them Helped Him Win

Did you know that only 4% of our president’s statements were completely true? He is a compulsive liar.  According to Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, “When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything.” When we’re barraged with a stream of lies (sounds like what we’ve been dealing with for the past year), this cognitive overload makes us give up deciphering what is true and what is false.

We inevitably absorb some of the lies, and this onslaught of untruths become normalized in our brains and we just begin to accept them as truths and reality. By repeating these lies over and over again, people believe they’re true. This effect is known as an “Illusory truth” and has been demonstrated by recent FAKE NEWS.

But here’s the really disturbing part about lies. Even when the truth comes out to refute a lie, just the act of countering the lie actually reinforces the lie! Yup! The brain hears the first part about the subject but the argument proving that the subject was wrong often gets lost.  So even when there is a deluge of evidence to prove that the statement was a lie, just the act of using those key words reinforces the lie in your brain. Retracted information can actually continue to reinforce the opposite position.

Think: Hillary’s emails.  After the original accusation about illegal emails, every statement made to defend her just further burned a guilty opinion in the public’s mind. Then when Comey conveniently brought up the question of Hillary’s emails just before the election (without any further proof or new evidence), the public heard it as yet another claim about her guilt – even though it was completely unfounded.

Worst of all: The onslaught of lies becomes normalized. Not sure what will become of American government in the next 4 years. I am trying to wrap my head around what this research means and how to state the truth and be heard.