GOP, Democrats, and the Burden of Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is, today, well understood by mental health clinicians. Social psychologist Leon Festinger first defined cognitive dissonance in 1954 when he observed that human beings fight to resolve contradictions between their strong points of view and the reality they can’t escape.

Festinger observed that humans would do almost anything to resolve contradictions between deeply held beliefs (Trump won) and reality (Trump lost).  

Award-winning journalist, and assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, Jay Michaelson, writes that cognitive dissonance is real; it is unpleasant, disordering, and catastrophic for the ego, and, he observes, “no amount of absurd, tortured reasoning is worse than reality contradicting a deeply held belief.” This will be Donald Trump’s long, lingering mark on America because he chose to conclude his presidency deliberately sowing widespread and groundless doubt about the credibility of an American election.

Michaelson says cognitive dissonance is the best explanation for today’s political and ideological divides and for the mind-blowing fact that 70 percent of Republicans say they think the election Trump lost was not “free and fair.” Michaelson says we all try to resolve cognitive dissonance, but the Trump movement has been a multi-years-long exercise. Election denial is its latest and most damaging manifestation.

Cognitive dissonance is the mental unease and discomfort one experiences when one holds conflicting beliefs. It is that nagging wrenching in the gut when one yells, “Stop the Steal,” while inner logic whispers, “What steal?”

When what we embrace, let alone advocate, is inconsistent with what our gut tells us, we sometimes experience subtle but often nagging cognitive dissonance. Mental health authorities have long known chronic cognitive dissonance is unhealthy and can cause great unease or discomfort. And when its cause is political, it can cause a loss of confidence in our country, its institutions, and, indeed, in ourselves.

Some Republicans absolutely believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen. They believe this despite the breathtaking absence of any supporting evidence and, in fact, overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It seems everyone has friends, family, or other acquaintances who embrace this facts-be-damned view about the 2020 election being stolen. If you harbor these views, this issue of my column is probably not for you. There is plenty of oratory in the echosphere that you will probably find more to your liking.

There are many other Republicans who embrace the stolen election mantra but are, for want of a better term, struggling with nagging doubt and unease. They wrestle with the reality that not a shred of credible evidence has surfaced to fortify their commitment to election denial. They understand, while clinging to the election-denial myth, that every court, including those presided over by Trump-appointed judges, has thrown out Trump’s stolen-election case as baseless. Indeed, in the confines of the court where ethics rules have teeth, no Trump campaign attorney has even made the case that there were out-of-the-ordinary election irregularities amounting to substantial fraud because there was no such case to be made.

The former President’s inner circle and senior campaign staff knew and advised Trump that he had lost the 2020 presidential election. Nonetheless, many, I suspect most, Republicans have been willing to embrace the stolen election rhetoric simply because they intensely dislike Joe Biden and rather like Donald Trump. They like how he governed, what they feel he accomplished, and even his boorish adolescent behavior. They are bitterly disappointed that he lost. Since inauguration day 2021, Stop the Steal has resonated far more with them than Hail to the Chief.

Republicans who have, thus far, decided to stick with Trump are almost certain to have consented to, or otherwise tolerated, his stolen-election nonsense. They have to in order to rationalize, if not condone, the criminal mayhem of January 6^th, 2021, which was, of course, the actual attempt to steal the election. 

They tune out Steve Bannon’s pre-election advisory that the plan was for Trump to declare victory on election night even if he was losing. The slow counting of Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots would mean the returns would show early leads for Trump in several key states where Republicans had been urged to vote in person. According to Bannon, Trump’s strategy was to use this fact to claim he had won and that the shifts toward Joe Biden, which he knew would occur as the tally of mail-in votes continued, would be the result of fraud.

 The cognitive dissonance with which these Trump stalwarts are now contending is bad for them, and, of course, it is bad for the country.

Dr. Guy Winch, Clinical Psychologist, prominent lecturer, and author of “Emotional First Aid,” writes that people dealing with the wounds of failure and rejection find accepting they were wrong, and absorbing that reality to be so psychologically shattering, that their defense mechanisms do something remarkable— they literally distort their perception of reality to make it less threatening. Their defense mechanisms protect their fragile ego by literally changing the very facts in their mind, so they are no longer wrong or culpable.”

Small wonder, then, that those strong supporters of Donald Trump are so willing to accept so baseless and reckless a calumny as the stolen election ruse. It enables them to feel aggrieved rather than defeated, eliminating the need to be loyal losers and, instead, enabling them to be cheated winners.

Democrats are now struggling with their own battle with cognitive dissonance. They are dismissive of the Hunter Biden story and rationalize there is really no “there,” there. However, there is a “there” there. Joe Biden, when he was Vice President, apparently joined Hunter on numerous phone calls, demonstrating that Hunter had powerful connections that, presumably, could benefit his clients and business associates. Vice President Biden, no doubt, wanted to help his troubled son by allowing Hunter to introduce him as an indication of his influence. So far, there is no evidence of illegality, but a strong suggestion of poor judgment and unconvincing protestations by President Biden that he had no involvement in promoting his son’s very lucrative business interests. Hunter Biden’s connection to his father, it seems, was his business interest, even if the then Vice President was never directly involved in, or personally profited from, any of Hunter’s business activity.

Democrats who are rationalizing that there was nothing untoward in Biden’s efforts, while in office, to promote his son’s very lucrative business dealings are, themselves, managing substantial cognitive dissonance.

Nearly 160 years ago, Abraham Lincoln questioned at Gettysburg whether our incredibly unique nation could long endure. He knew then, as we know now, that the greatest threats to the miracle of America would invariably come from within. Our destruction, he was warning, would be at our own hands. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Please consider our Of Thee I Sing 1776 Premium option. While my weekly column is always free, for just $5/month, you’ll also receive my annual ebook, “Essays For Our Time,” and my new Podcasts. My recent podcasts have featured my commentary on the Trump Documents Indictment, the Fox Corp Settlement, The CNN Trump Town Hall, the Hunter Biden plea deal, The New American Cult of Personality, and my interviews with:

William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels

Senator Barbara Boxer

Senator Joe Lieberman

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan

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