I watched the hearing mostly on C-Span today...

[MrScorpio]

And although I do appreciate the commercial-free and pundit-free segments between takes, it means that the viewers have to endure the call-in parts of the programming from a lot of people who have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.

As you all know, while some C-Span callers chime in with some pretty keen observations, relevant questions and opinions, other callers provide a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

It seems that much of the people in red America are impelled to share their irrational anger, admissions of being duped by Fox News and Trump and basic ignorance, even after seeing everything that you and I had seen in those hearings.

Clearly, it’s as if they’re blind people who have never seen an elephant before, who are trying their best to describe such animal by only feeling the trunk, leg or tail.

If you were to describe the totality of this creature, they would dismiss your description, because their limited senses only give them the ability to classify the shape of an elephant as if it were a snake, a tree or a rope respectively.

Clearly, that’s willful ignorance and it’s almost impossible to overcome. What can one say about people who thought that America was falling apart during the Obama years, only to be doing perfectly with Trump at the helm?

Or those who act as if Trump is above the law and that he and his officials shouldn’t have to endure vigorous congressional oversight?

How about the people who refuse to acknowledge that there was a clear and valid reason to investigate Trump and his campaign and the results of that investigation has shown impeachable offenses by their President?

These people are not willing to accept reality.

The only bright moments that were interspersed in the commentary were provided by callers who backed up their opinions with pertinent facts.

Dunning-Kruger was clearly on display with our red America denizens who thought that knew more than they actually knew, only because they had a iron grip on the faulty propaganda that’s been fed to them. Never mind that none of it is corroborated with reality or documentation. Were one to demand that they show facts, figures and a historical record of their specious claims, none of them could ever comply.

C-Span provides a microcosm of our deep seated faults as a body politic.

We’ve got a long way to go to resolve these issues and put the country back on the right track. None of us should have any misconceptions that any of that will either be easy or automatic.

[Chin music]

1. You are a better person than me. I REFUSE to watch cspan call ins.

Quit doing that during the bush years. The stupid and the schtick was SO obvious, that it hurt my temples. Bunch of gop nitwits calling in like its a local radio gig and their friends are listening. No...thank....you.

[jaysunb]

2. Good post. I totally agree. N/t

[rusty quoin]

3. The thing I think about is Plato's allegory of the cave with these people.

Their faces are stuck in the Fox News screen, and you cannot convince them that there is actually reality.

[lunasun]

4. Yes I don't know how it will end but I do hope the country can get back on track

By their own choice they have decided to be like the prisoners in Plato’s cave

But also they are like the contents of Pandora’s box now and it will be hard to reign in this empowered group delusion imo
A group enlightened at some point or can it be, if the group effect is not eliminated , then a lessened number to the degree that there are not enough to matter?
Let’s think positive but I agree will not be easy

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Wikipedia
Had to look that up +++ yes

I don’t have cable at home, and was out of town on business and in a hotel on election night 2018 . I was unsure of what channel would have the least talking heads rambling on or other than fox , which news channel was slanted to the right too much .

I thought CSpan would be neutral. That’s what I thought would be good to view election results with out a lot of endless chatter

Then they took those call ins !!!

OMG The reminder of what kind of people there are out there when watching I couldn’t

Oh no not on that night when winning looked good just listening to thier nonsense was too much

I wound up watching MSNBC I think for the results

Well at least the talking heads although babbling too much for me still was better than those dummy call-ins on CSpan