Remember "The Dress?"
Remember back in 2015 when some people called the dress blue and black? Others thought it white and gold. Same dress, same image.
Weird, huh?
Humans automatically make assumptions about the nature of the light shining on what we see. If we assume the dress is illuminated in daylight, we adjust how it would look in those cool, blue, short wavelengths, and we see a white and gold dress. If we assumed a warmer light of incandescent bulbs, we see a blue and black dress.
I myself saw white and gold. It was obvious. I was certain. How could anyone possibly see blue and black? I had no idea that I was actively making assumptions about wavelengths.
This photo helps make the point:
An ongoing theme of this blog is that our interpretation of political events goes through a similar process. We make presumptions, usually unconsciously, while our attention is focused elsewhere. I try to draw people's attention to the unspoken body-language message of political actors, to their tone of voice, manner, demeanor. Denoted words matter, but people are not "objective." We make unconscious decisions that frame and interpret what we think we are seeing objectively. Objective isn't objective.
I see Trump in what I believe to be the cool daylight of truth. He is a skilled con man who projects his own crimes onto others. He persuades the gullible because he appears to believe what he says. I recognize that many Trump supporters perceive him differently, in warm light, as a flawed but basically good truth-teller, an heroic defender of their tribe, now set upon by enemies.
I don't count on court cases revealing the underlying nature of the light shining on Trump. Trump is consistent and adamant. He can persuade people that the light is yellowish. People who saw a blue and black dress were utterly sure of what they saw. There will likely be a couple of them on any jury of 12. The "facts" aren't contained in the dress. The "facts" are buried in the viewers' own unconscious decisions about the light.
Back in 2015, I was able--after some effort--to shift back and forth in how I saw the image. It took some effort. More effort, say, than it takes to switch back and forth with that classic image of beautiful young woman with a necklace / old woman with a big nose and a shawl.
But I was able to shift the dress colors.
Peter, it seems you are able to do this politically. That's an invaluable skill.
For example: I see Zach Shrewsbury as an ideal candidate in West Virginia, but maybe I need to adjust the lighting.
Here is a nice explication regarding how (some) evangelicals view the world: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/12/2205331/-Inside-the-Mind-of-one-Evangelical-Republican-Voter?pm_campaign=trending&pm_source=sidebar&pm_medium=web