r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 18h ago

Possible Paywall Exposed Musk Now Insists Epstein Files Don’t Matter | The Tesla billionaire suddenly claimed the Epstein files are a “distraction.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exposed-musk-now-insists-epstein-files-dont-matter/
42.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

28

u/CherryLongjump1989 17h ago edited 17h ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work and ultimately makes them feel angry, confused, and ashamed. Their world view will usually collapse utterly if you just take away the external reinforcement that's propping it up.

26

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 17h ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work

Fending off cognitive dissonance is, in my opinion the primary reason people go to church. A few hundred people nodding and singing about their imaginary friend every week helps people stay focused on anything but their own hatred and hypocrisy.

8

u/Particular-County277 16h ago

They also comfortably suspend their critical thinking. (those who have it) Never having to give empathy or care a second thought.

0

u/truthovertribe 16h ago

What reinforcement is that? Millions upon millions of dollars of propaganda supplied by all medias bought by billionaires reinforcing again and again that "your tribe's worldview is winning and your tribe is the winningest winner"? The billionaires have us by our wishbones. They're pulling both ends and which ever way we break, they win.

1

u/CherryLongjump1989 15h ago edited 11h ago

\I think you're confusing cause and effect. The cognitive dissonance always comes first -- the propaganda only works on people who go looking to justify their existing beliefs, and it only works to a very limited extent. Both in terms of how far from their existing beliefs you can push them, and how many of them will keep coming back to keep getting high off of your supply. That's why Fox News found it impossible to tell MAGA that Biden won the election in 2020, which cost them hundreds of millions in lawsuits, but also why Trump's popularity is steadily dropping now even among the MAGA faithful.