Is Donald J. Trump the real last Jedi?
A thought exercise to explore how to effectively create an alternate reality
Probably like many people, I have marveled and wondered at former President Trump’s ability to create a diametrically-opposed alternate reality on any issue whatever. He’s really quite remarkably successful at this, and in thinking it over, I came up with a simple thought exercise to examine the phenomenon. Here goes:
Imagine that former POTUS is giving a statement to media. On a table nearby sits a drinking glass with a quantity of water in it — the quantity, or rather the perception of quantity, is the basis for the famous test to determine whether an observer is a pessimist or an optimist. The former would say that “the glass is half empty,” while the latter would say “the glass is half full.” Everyone knows this simple example — it’s been around for ages. Whether it is an efficacious way to explore the pessimist/optimist dichotomy is not important in this particular thought exercise.
For reasons unimportant at the moment, someone asks №45 the obvious question; and for reasons known only to him, he decides that the presence of that glass is something he’d rather not have. He has a Machiavellian intellect, and such a mind can come up with some odd things — it is important to him for some reason that the glass not exist. As he has done many, many…
