Of pink elephants, Trumps, Hitlers and hypnotism

If you see a pink elephant, and fifty other people in the same room also see that pink elephant, but ten folks in the room do not see it, even though all fifty one of you are rabidly pointing at the elephant, does that mean that the elephant is real

If I say "collective hallucination" and your impulse is to feel skeptical, please stop, calm down, and listen.

I'm not talking about psychotic hallucinations.  I'm talking about something far more pedestrian.

Many magicians use hypnotism (weaponized persuasion techniques) on a day-to-day basis, to confuse many people at once while they perform their tricks.  Misdirection, sleight of hand, et cetera, social pressure, repetition, half-truths.  It's all in the toolkit of the magician, the hypnotist, the persuader — and quite a few other professions.

Watch.

Now, consider this.  About 40% of the voting electorate in the U.S. do not see the pink elephant that the other 40% of the electorate insist they see.

Ask yourself: how likely is it that the pink elephant is real, when half of the people simply don't see it?

How likely is it that you are being told "there's this pink elephant in the room, look at all the people around you in your tribe who also see it"?

Which group of society first started telling people "Trump is Hitler, Trump is Hitler, Trump is Hitler"?

It was pretty much all mass media.

Thousands upon thousands of people.  A billion dollar industry.

They started saying that from the very first day he launched his campaign.

We know they have poured inordinate amounts of money into campaigning against him.

We know they have given two billion dollars of airtime to Trump, overwhelmingly spent on attacks against him.

So, for the good of your own mind, I ask you to consider that, perhaps, you are being hypnotized by professional magicians, who have a very strong interest in seeing their candidate win, who stand to profit enormously from manipulating your thoughts to make that happen, and who stand to lose a ton of influence and money if you defy what they have told you to believe.

Consider the possibility that you may not even notice such subversion of your mind, even as it is happening.  That is, after all, how hypnosis works.

Just consider it.

Protect your mind.  It is literally the only thing about you that is you.