Aaron Retica

And Vance even admitted that, well, he said, you know, you got to tell stories.

Although emblematic of our era in so many ways.

He is a deluded manipulator.

What's interesting about the 2020 lies, whether or not you think that Trump believes them or

or whether he didn't and then he does.

What's interesting about it is that the loyalty test is stronger if you know that in reality, he lost the election, and you're still willing to say, as people in Congress did, that, yeah, actually, we're not gonna certify those results, even though they know perfectly well that they were legit, right?

That's actually the more powerful move, right, to get people to acknowledge a non-reality, right?

And this is why people are always making

references to Eastern Europe, to the history of Latin America, and even to Hitler and Mussolini and all the rest of it, because making someone believe something they know is not true is a bigger power move than getting them to acknowledge something that's true.

And watching last night, that was something I was thinking about, too, because they're trying to get people to...

Accept a reality, obey a reality, acknowledge a reality that doesn't exist.

And sometimes that works, but it often doesn't, right?

It decays.

It's always what people do.

in their second terms, right?

They get sick of trying to do things that are hard, which is legislative, and just start winging it because they have more control over that.

That seems to be where Trump is.

Yeah.

I mean, the impeachment thing also, I think, is significant because he went, I forget whether it was before the Republican House, but maybe it was some Senate thing, where, you know, he's talking to the members behind closed doors, but everything always leaks.

And he said to them, you know, if you lose, they're going to impeach me a third time.