GUEST OPINION: Is the anti-Trump hysteria artificial? | Opinion

Sometimes people say really crazy things. And you can’t help but wonder if they really believe what they profess.

I recently asked myself the same question. You see, a good friend of mine and I got back together after a few months apart and, as you know, the conversation turned to the election.

After he began expressing what I detected as near-panic worry about a Trump election, I asked him, “What exactly are you afraid of?”

In response to my question, he provided me with an article by Brian Cohen that predicted that a Trump victory would mean “a national ban on abortion, … attacks on contraception, the abortion pill, IVF, gay marriage and transgender rights.”

Naturally, I was shocked and disconcerted that any reasonable, intelligent person would take such claims seriously. But obviously, some do. I pointed out to him that Cohen’s article was hysteria and that no president had such authority. My reasoning did not seem to convince him.

Then my friend provided what he thought was irrefutable evidence that Trump was surely a potential tyrant. He quoted this Trump quote: “Christians, go out and vote. This time. You won’t have to anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be all over. Everything will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”

Apparently, for many on the left, this is solid evidence that Trump intends to establish a police state and ban all elections in the future. Yes, in their altered reality, there is no other possible explanation for such talk.

There’s just one small problem: Trump hasn’t been willing to say much of what’s been attributed to him.

It turns out that this short quote was taken from the very end of an hour-long speech Trump gave at a Turning Point Action summit in Florida. What those seeking to twist Trump’s words won’t share with you is the quote that precedes the condemnatory speech.

He said: “I will secure our elections. Our goal will be, as I said, to vote in one day, with paper ballots, proof of citizenship and a system called the voter card.”

Let’s be serious: can a responsible and honest person really think that his appeal to Christians means that there will be no more elections? Of course not! But that doesn’t stop many people from making such ridiculous statements.

But it’s not just my friend who lives in this illusion. Now I find this quote coming up everywhere.

Seriously, I really wonder if people really believe such nonsense. When I consider their level of intelligence, I can’t help but seriously doubt that people believe such outrageous and fantastic things.

So I wonder what the alternative is. And all I can imagine is that, in their desire to make Trump look like the monster the media portrays him to be, they abandon rational thought and embrace hysteria.

This embrace is not intellectual, but rather emotional.

I consider how continuous and comprehensive the media attacks on Trump are, and how perverted so many truths are, and I reconsider that it is possible that many people actually believe the untruths presented as reality. The media has promoted a narrative that there are two tribes: one intelligent and loving that hates Trump; and the other, for some inexplicable reason, loves Trump. The narrative suggests that these people love him because of their self-loathing, racism, or fear of demographic change. And who would want to be part of that tribe?

The bottom line of this narrative is that Trump is a depraved human being, and with the media having convinced a large portion of the masses of this notion, getting them to buy other ridiculous things is relatively easy.

So what I concluded is that Trump’s detractors don’t intellectually believe all this hysteria. But they still want it to be true.

So they adopt him based on feelings, because their tribe told them they were supposed to hate him.

Because, you see, belonging to the tribe is more important than using one’s reasoning skills and reaching an informed conclusion.

But a functioning and peaceful civilization requires that we reach rational conclusions, not artificial ones.

Charlie Danaher is the founder of Danaher Cryogenics, a father of five, and a mechanical engineer.