I’ve seen so many people go and meet with Donald Trump and come and be like, oh, he’s really charming and personable. And I’m like, of course he’s charming and personable. Like, what were you expecting? But this is where the science comes in. Because if you go in and you see charming and personable, just add it to your data set: Noted. He’s doing these incoherent things. He seems to be kind of largely incoherent in his views and in his plans. He seems to have a terrific mean streak. And when I talk to him, he’s so nice. OK, so now we have a new portrait of the man. And I think that would totally enable one to oppose him better — better than if you had a caricature of him that didn’t comply with truth. To me, as a scientist, I mean, well, yeah, of course, you’d want all the information you could have. And if it’s hard to process or it’s complicated, that’s OK. That’s just part of the game. So I think that’s part of maybe — there’s so much emotion right now, so much agitation and fear. And I think that somehow for some reason, that makes people crave autopilot, a set of beliefs that’s very simple and is sturdy in every circumstance. And that’s not really what human beings are good at. I mean, we like it, we like it. But out of that comes violence and extremity. And I would say that’s what the right is doing right now. They somehow — I think they know they’re looting the house and they know the time is limited. And so they’re agitated and they’re on autopilot. And anybody who opposes them is a leftist lunatic. You have the evidence of your senses — says this in Minneapolis is a murder. They fictionalize the fact that he was, quote unquote, brandishing a gun. That’s panic. That’s panic. But it’s also autopilot, because a person not on autopilot would watch the damn video, and would adjust their viewpoint accordingly. That’s what intelligent people do. Or — it’s funny, I wonder if it’s autopilot or — Well, one of the things it is is autopilot — It is an attempt to impose the domination that power can have over other people on reality itself. Yeah. When I see that, when I see — when I am lied to in that way, I understand it as an act of domination. One hundred percent. They do not expect me to believe it. Well, you know what it’s like? It’s like if you went into a really nice restaurant and somebody, the waiter, brought you three turds on a tray and put it down. “Enjoy!” There’s a kind of a disbelief that he just did that. If you don’t stand up and say, get this, get these turds out of here, bring me my lasagna, then he’s won. And if he keeps bringing the turds and you don’t call him on it, then you erode — your belief in truth erodes and you start to shrink. And pretty soon, all bets are off. So I think that’s where — and now what amazes me is that they want that and they know how to do it, that’s the part that if I was going to write a book about this time, I would try — I would really want to understand, because as you said, I don’t think that they — I don’t think anyone gets up in the morning and goes, yeah, time to be evil. I don’t think — I mean, there are probably some sociopaths and so on, but mostly I think JD Vance wakes up in the morning and he feels like a good Catholic. And that’s fascinating to me. I don’t — Despite being repeatedly rebuked by popes. Yes. A couple of years after he turned Catholic — It is interesting and as a writer, that’s such rich stuff to go towards that which you don’t understand and vow not to falsify it in either direction. Just look at it, look at it, look at it. That’s rich.
