Welcome to the Party, Pal.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Vacuums are created when facts, truth and reality are denied.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
I've always thought the above Gary Larson Far Side cartoon of Alice and her Hoover is one of the funniest he ever did.
Nature contains no vacuums because the denser surrounding material continuum immediately fills the rarity of an incipient void.
Nature also abhors contradiction which, in a real sense, is a vacuum of logic. When the mind rejects facts, truth and reality, a void in the mind is created which is filled with something that is not factual, truthful or real.
An alternate reality is a false reality, but that doesn't mean it cannot exist. People delude themselves all the time, usually those delusions are small and harmless - looking in a mirror and believing we are still young, thin and athletic when we are maybe not so much anymore fits that bill.
Those vacuums are minor and harmless, but when those vacuums are filled with false senses of self-righteousness, arrogance and a sense of superiority, that vacuum loses its containment within our own being and begins to impact people around us.
And the condition becomes especially dangerous when like attracts like - shared delusions are easier to maintain in groups because mutual agreement of how superior the deluded are is like a drug addiction.
I began this thought when I dipped my toe in the toxic pond that is progressive Twitter/X last night and saw so many freaked out proglodytes (especially those in the Gen Z larval stage) who just couldn't understand the polls from swing states that show Biden losing to Trump in a big way. They just can't understand how people can still support Trump given all the things they have generated against him.
"Trump the insurrectionist literally tried to overthrow Congress, kill thousands of Americans due to his COVID response, was impeached twice, got indicted on 91 criminal counts, raped women, and threated humanity by ignoring the climate…"
Usually followed by:
"Biden is the best president in history! He has returned to the norms! He's not old, he is experienced! He is a foreign policy genius! Bidenomics is working! He's Dark Brandon! I'm thankful he is my president!"
Being the helpful guy I am and because I care about people and their mental health, I suggested there might be a more accurate solution to their conundrum - it might just be that everything they believe is a lie, that every albatross they have hung around Trump's neck are constructed of political contrivances and legal absurdities.
Eventually, delusions end. They crash headlong into reality where facts and truth matter.
The Israel-Hamas war might be a tipping point because the pro Hamas protests in the West deny proven history and prove that progressive intersectionality is just the "something" that filled the vacuum when progressives denied reality.
Something either is or is not and it might just take personal loss to break them free from the delusion that most of what they believe can exist at the same time. Shocker - it can't.
All I have to say to those seeing a glimmer of light is this:
"Welcome to the party, pal."
If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.
Being the helpful guy you are, I'm thankful that you explained things to them. Maybe some of it will land and take root.