Gandalv

@microinteracti1 · Twitter · 2026-07-16 11:08 UTC

A Simple Question! Who won the U.S 2020 election? Don't worry, it's not a trick. There is no follow-up. A child could answer it. Billions of people across the planet could answer it. And yet Jay Clayton, former SEC chairman, sitting federal prosecutor, a man entrusted with the secrets of the American state, stared at Senator Ossoff this week like he'd been asked to solve cold fusion. He knows the answer, of course. That's the delicious part. He simply isn't allowed to say it, because the one man whose approval he needs prefers a lie. So there he sat, one of America's finest legal minds, reciting "he was certified" with all the conviction of a hostage video. And here is the trick, because it is a trick, and an old one. Psychologists have understood it since Festinger described cognitive dissonance in the 1950s: once you publicly say something you know is false, your mind starts working overtime to justify it, because the alternative is admitting what you've become. The dissident Václav Havel wrote about the greengrocer who hangs a party slogan in his window, not because he believes it, but to signal obedience, and in that small act the regime acquires him. The psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple made the same point about Soviet propaganda: it was never meant to persuade. It was meant to humiliate. A person forced to repeat an obvious lie loses the ability to resist anything, because their self-respect is already gone. That is what Trump understands instinctively, the way every narcissist does. He doesn't need you to believe the lie. He needs you to repeat it while both of you know it's false. That's the moment of ownership. The lie isn't information, it's initiation. Shared complicity, the same glue that holds criminal gangs together. And as you've surely noticed, everyone around Trump repeats his lies. Every cabinet member, every nominee, every senator in the front row. Not one of them believes it. That's precisely why they say it. So think about that, the next time someone powerful asks you to say something you both know isn't true. It's never about the words. It's a loyalty test, and the fee is you. Stay connected, follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1