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Tue, Nov

Perception is not Reality

VOICES

THE VIEW FROM HERE - The saying that perception is reality is based on everyone’s understanding that it is not.  Rather, it means that people act upon what they believe to be true even when it is false.  Thus, if thousands believe that the 2020 President election was stolen, they will stage a resurrection at the Capitol in an attempt to hang the Vice-President based on another misperception - Pence had the power to reject the certified ballots from the individual states. 

Cults Are Based on Misperception of Reality 

Twenty-two members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide in 1997 in the belief that by suicide, they would transform their physical selves into immortal extraterrestrial beings and hitch a ride a rocket ship following Hale-Bobb Comet.  Please do not ask for a rational reason for an irrational belief. 

False Perception Can Harm Other People 

Rep. Katie Porter, famous for her white board displays in Congress, was doing okay in her primary race against Rep. Adam Schiff until two events: (1) Schiff started promoting GOP Garvey, and (2) a slew of TV ads charging Katie Porter with taking money from big corporations.  The concept that Garvey is a real contender as Schiff’s ads implied misses being a lie since weirder things have happened.  As Porter’s taking those donations, she countered that fact checkers found there was no truth to the charges.  The public was left with perceptions, on which many apparently relied. Both Garvey and Schiff got more votes than Porter knocking her off of the ballot for Senator.  In retrospect, one wonders what if Katie had take out her white board to show that Garvey was not a contender and that the donations charges were a false. 

Is Adam Schiff a Moderate Democrat?

As the toadie of Nancy Pelosi who is the main promoter if Identity Politics, aka Wokeism, on the national level and promoter of anti-Semites to positions of power in the US Congress, there is some debate whether Adam Schiff is not a left wing sleeper for Wokerism.  Whatever reality maybe, a group of Hamas supporters disrupted Adam Schiff’s March 5th speech to his supporters at Avalon Club on Vine Street in Hollywood with shouts of “Free Palestine” and ‘Cease Fire Now.”  Unlike some agitators, they were not in the far back or few in number, nor did they make their interruption and then allow security to escort them out of the ball room.  While a couple of them were physically dragged off, it looked as if a melee might erupt.  They had gotten to the very front right along the stage, and but for the security restraining them, they were within striking distance of Schiff.  The TV cameras in the back of the auditorium could film everything.  Adam Schiff kept his cool, but the situation was too inflammatory for Schiff to make his entire speech.  Schiff finished his thank-you’s to his staff and supporters, while everyone was ushered off the stage. 

Now Schiff has visuals to show that he is not a woker. Now, GOP Garvey cannot make an issue of Schiff’s subservience to Nancy Pelosi far left agenda. 

Where Does the National Dem Party Stand with Wokeism 

Biden acts as if he needs the Woke left, but is his perception reality.  It is quite likely that many people’s perception of Biden’s being anti-Israel is more politically dangerous to his winning in 2024 than his jettisoning the Woke Extremists.  Eighty Percent (80%) of Americans support Israel and despite the US Woke media’s constant falsehoods to the contrary, over 85% of Israelis support Netanyahu’s coalition government. Even MAGA GOP reject the GOP’s anti-Semitic Nazis. 

Uncommitted Voters 

Are the Uncommitted a problem for Biden? Most likely, they are a benefit to Biden just as the protestors were a benefit to Schiff.  There is dispute whether how many wokers actually checked uncommitted. One has to compare prior elections to ascertain the average number of uncommitted.  While 80% of Americans support Israel, 40% do not want the election to be Trump v Biden.  It will take analysis on a precinct by precinct basis to form an intelligent opinion what motivated this year’s Uncommitted. (One year, I had the job to gather all the precinct data for West LA. So, I know that professionals ferret out the most detailed data.) 

Since Trump is pro Israel with his main lament that Netanyahu was too lenient with Hamas, Wokers withholding votes from Biden is a weird strategy.  Also, there are millions more votes to be gained or lost by both parties among the Independents.  Until now the pro-Hamas Woke element has worked its pressure politics behind closed doors, but after the scandal with the Ivy League presidents like Harvard’s President Claudine Gay before Congress where they could not condemn anti-Semitism and the extermination of Jews, many Americans are alert to the danger of the woke left.  The farther Biden can move away from the Hamas supporters, the more likely he can gain more votes from the unaffiliated center. 

As LA’s investigative journalist Dan Guss exposed, the woke group Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have a requirement that all their members must co-govern with DSA    Co-govern means the local DSA chapter determines for elected official how vote and it is the DSA member’s duty to vote that way.  DSA is the left’s counterpart to the extremists MAGA except no part of the GOP supports genocide. 

Thus, at this time the reality of how much DSA’s demands will impact the 2024 election is a matter still in the making, but it is hard to believe that any Independent voter will support Hamas.

(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor.  You may email him at [email protected])