re: Sydney Powell is a sad example of the cost of emotional thinking & going off the deep end

This is a really interesting thread the more I think about it.

One of the most fascinating things to me is flaws in the human reasoning system.

The whole Qanon thing was wild. To those of us on the outside it was obviously just some prank/attention grab/bored lunatic.

To people on the inside it was the most important thing in their lives. It was everything, it explained everything, and it was worth losing everything (family, friends etc).

When I see that kind of thing I have to wonder do those people really believe it?

That's why the Ezra Cohen Watnick phonecall is such a powerful indicator for me.

I don't wish to argue about whether the election was actually stolen, but you guys on this board need to understand that the likes of Cohen Watnick and other top Trump officials didn't think Trump would win in 2020 and never thought for a second the election was stolen, even if they've claimed otherwise publicly.

Cohen Watnick is probably, like the rest of the admin officials on both sides, a power hungry cynic. Powell probably knew this, she probably knows these types of people and knows that randomly calling this guy up and claiming something that at least on the face of it - is fricking wild, is likely to be met with derision and mockery, unless it just so happens to be true.

So she must have believed that part. She must actually have believed that Haspell was in fact in Germany, injured, trying to recover a stolen server.

The only other explanation for that behavior is that she knew it wasn't true but thought that making an idiot of herself to a key player in the national intelligence apparatus was somehow going to be good for her.

I mean, imagine the balls it must take to call up the secretary for defense intelligence and go "hey I'm just some rando lawyer, you're a government official in charge of intel, now let me tell you this insane thing that you should already know but apparently don't for some reason".

Never forget.

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What about smart people who didn't get swept up in either moral panic? Like me.

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As often as you have to remind people how smart you are, it sure seems like validation seeking behaviors.

Smart people usually don't have to tell others how smart they are on a daily basis.

Jesus Christ was hung out to dry by people who described him as you describe Powell. Maybe you have that "brain infection".

It's subjective. Ultimate Reality is. Albeit "you can tell a tree by the fruit that it bears and Hunter's Laptop was "Russian Disinformation", per the same people who are 'crucifying' (politically/personally) Trump, Powell, et al, and the 80 million productive people who support our Constitutional Republic version of governance. And resist "fundamental change" to a Global Totalitarian version.

Talk and voting won't solve this type of division. Never has and never will. Separation via the "wheat and the tares" will.

Yeah, that's a really good book and important psychology relevant to politics. Another idea really relevant to this thread is something called the illusory truth effect which describes a natural tendency to mistake the "fluency" or ease with which an idea moves through one's thinking as a proxy for plausibility or even truth. The more we hear or read an idea, even one that we know isn't true, the more "fluent" it becomes in our thinking and the more seemingly plausible it becomes and this is a basis for the effects of repetitive propaganda that SFP is discussing.

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Illusory truth effect

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Makes perfect sense, though I'd not seen it defined quite that way before.

Thx

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While I believe there was shenanigans with the election, its not the reason Trump lost.

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Everyone already knew that the in-person votes would be tallied first and mail-in votes took longer to count and confirm. Trump’s own people knew the mail-in bump would occur for Biden.

Also interesting (not surprising) that Trump brought in a new postmaster general who removed several mail sorting machines from post offices in the weeks leading up to Election Day, which would slow mail delivery.

Powell would have been made aware of all these things…

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I imagine whichever grifter summarized this for you

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You have quite the imagination.

Both the cases were well publicized. You have far better access to the case law than do I via Google filters at this stage. The first was in spring of 2020, the second was in early December in the immediate aftermath.

Again, two heavily Democrat counties ignored WI election law. The made no secret of it. The facts were NEVER in dispute. The declaration of no merit was ridiculous!

I'm surprised you were unaware of those cases, and I'm surprised you'd not be more curious now. Look it up.

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Sydney Powell is a sad example of the cost of emotional thinking & going off the deep end

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Well, she is a woman.

Allegedly.