Why You're Mad At Trump
A lot of people seem to be mad at Trump. You might be one of them.
You probably think you know why you’re mad at him. For instance, you might not like what he said about the judge in a lawsuit he’s involved with. Or maybe you didn’t like what he said about Rosie O’Donnell. You might even be mad that he said Saddam Hussein was a bad man who was good at killing terrorists.
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You probably think your decision to be mad was yours and yours alone, right? No one told you to be mad, and you wouldn’t have listened anyway. You’re smart enough to know that it’s stupid to give someone else power over your emotional state. Like most of us, you’ve learned that saying (or thinking) things like, “he makes me so mad,” means you’ve surrendered control of your emotional well-being to somebody you don’t like.
So you must be mad at Trump out of your choice, right?
You certainly were not tricked into your feelings, were you? You probably know that Trump has been using the line about Saddam Hussein killing terrorists since last summer. No one disputes that. You chose to get mad today because . . . because . . . Well, you had your reasons for choosing today, after all these months, to get mad.
And it was your choice, right? The fact that all the major news media simultaneously said “people are mad about Trump’s comments” had no influence on you. Nor did the fact that the media started covering the story shortly after Trump’s opponent’s campaign released a statement calling on people to get angry about Trump’s comments.
You know that anyone who lets a stranger like Hillary Clinton or NBC News make them mad is mentally weak and emotionally irresponsible. Psychologists pretty much all agree on this. So I’m sure you have fantastic, logical reasons for choosing to get mad today about something Trump’s been saying since at least November 2015. It’s just a coincidence that Hillary Clinton and NBC News told you to be angry on the very day you decided to be mad.
Just a coincidence.
And since you can’t be influenced by anyone, I won’t bother asking you to buy my new book.
(Note: also posted on Medium)
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