Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Saturday, November 8, 2014

The Petulence Effect

Behold the birth of a new cognitive bias, the petulance effect.
Post 2010, of course, [Pres. Obama] also hasn’t had much practice negotiating. I’m not interested in another tedious argument about who did what to whom; whatever the cause and whoever’s fault it may be, the fact remains that the president has spent the last four years in a stalemate: Neither party can leave, and neither party can win.
Refusing to look at facts because reality is really, really irritating.

6 comments:

cynic said...

any guess I made would mostly consist of projecting my own discomfort with the tactic onto an electorate that doesn’t look a whole lot like me.

Jaw dropping admission: could it possibly be a freudian slip she did not intend to make?

In any case, I suppose the republicans do not have to change their stance after fairly massive democratic victories in 2012 but now the democrats do? That was not a mandate but this was a repudiation?

bill murray said...

Cynic, when 17% of the electorate votes for republicans that's a mandatepudiation, but 31% voting for democrats is just a bunch of thugs stealing from the treasury

Susan of Texas said...

Ack--anger and pride of Hispanics who are treated like dirt by Anglos.

Kathy said...

Arglebargle: "I don't care who burned down the Old Folks Home, I just want it fixed!"

"Ir doesn't matter who poisoned the Tylenol, so long as its now safe for me to use!"

"The BMW driver who ran down a Mother and three kids probably just didn't see them! Or he thought they were OK. It was probably their fault for having crossing the street while Black!"

Batocchio said...

As someone quipped a couple of years back, people who don't want to blame game are usually losing. For McArdle, the details be damned when they're damning. (Most of the time otherwise, too, since she's lazy.)

Batocchio said...

*"People who don't want to play the blame game are usually losing."