George Brooks: ‘Confirmation bias’ winning out

Regarding the Sept. 29 column “Trump? How could we?”: Thomas Friedman was aghast that Donald Trump could ever be the candidate for the presidency.

“How in the world do we put a man in the Oval Office who thinks NATO is a shopping mall where tenants aren’t paying enough rent to the U.S. landlord?” Friedman asked, adding that NATO is a strategic alliance that won the Cold War and keeps Europe stable. Friedman’s “how’s” continued, touching on Trump’s positions on IRAQ, ISIS and taxes.

The answer Friedman is seeking is that people’s thinking process is deadened by “confirmation bias,” defined briefly as the tendency to interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs, even when facts prove them wrong.

Wishful thinking? Limited human capacity to process information objectively? A closed mind even to one’s own peril? Voting against one’s own interest?

Trump has clearly demonstrated he is racist, rude, selfish, biased, short-sighted, temperamental, divisive, vindictive and uninformed. Would anyone want their husband, father, son, brother, fiance, son-in-law to behave this way? Why then would they want this for their president?

This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 9:26 PM with the headline "George Brooks: ‘Confirmation bias’ winning out."