This short video is the fourth in a series of videos about how Americans react to obvious, provable deception, lies, and gaslighting by politicians. The quotation attributed to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” This belief might have been false in 1973, but until recently, I believed most Americans believed that facts could be proven true, false, or flagged for more scrutiny.
This video introduces a topic called motivated reasoning. This condition relates to a form of biased, selective reasoning to preserve preconceived ideas and group loyalties. People who engage in motivated reasoning believe their reasoning is sound, even if it lies within the confines of their mental framework. They are like the proverbial Russian gymnastics judge who sees the smallest of faults with a non-Russian performer, while ignoring the same faults with a Russian. Facts are weighed based on whether they help my tribe, not on their accuracy. Future videos will discuss related topics.
This is the direct link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/_pjiBUJeKbs