The left lives on “narrative.” In other words, it tells stories. It tells stories about race, gender, criminal violence, and a host of other things. Occasionally, these stories intersect with the facts, but more often than not, they don’t. I mention this because it was the unmistakable difference between fact and narrative that drove Georgia H, a lovely and articulate educator and nurse, to #WalkAway from the Democrat party and its stories. Her video has already garnered 1.1 million views and counting. That’s because she says crucial things about the nature of reality.

“Cognitive dissonance” is a fancy word for simultaneously holding contrary beliefs or understandings, one of which connects with reality and the other of which does not. Over the long run, cognitive dissonance is an unsustainable state. Reality will win.

I know, because I had a WalkAway moment a couple of decades ago when my Democrat belief system crashed headlong into the lies I knew that NPR was telling me. I could either embrace the narrative or embrace the truth. That’s how I became a conservative.

Natan Sharansky, who was probably the most famous refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, has described how people struggle when they live in a totalitarian society that demands they believe its narrative, even when the realities of their lives brutally and explicitly contradict that narrative. In The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny And Terror  (2004 hardback edition), Sharansky discussed the “doublethink” that drove people mad:

In any place where dissent is banned, society fractures into three groups. One group is composed of those who remain committed to the prevailing order because they agree with it — the true believers. Another group is made up of those who are willing to defy the prevailing order despite the risk of punishment — the dissidents. For members of these two groups, there will be little or no gap between their private thoughts and public statements. Unlike true believers and dissidents, members of the third group do not say what they think. This group is comprised of people who no longer believe in the prevailing ideology, but who are afraid to accept the risks associated with dissent. They are the “doublethinkers.”

[snip]

Doublethinkers live in constant tension from the gap between their thoughts and words. They always avoid saying what is not permitted but also try to avoid saying what they do not believe. But fear societies generally do not leave their doublethinkers such a luxury. They demand from their “cogs” constant expressions of loyalty. In kindergartens, schools, universities, workplaces, religious institutions, public meetings, and elsewhere, doublethinkers must parrot the ideology of the regime and hide their true beliefs. This constant self-censorship can be such an inseparable part of a doublethinker’s existence that it becomes so habitual that the tension between thoughts and words is almost no longer felt. Indeed, only when doublethinkers are free are they fully aware of the extent of their previous self-imposed intellectual servitude.  (pp. 43-46.)

Georgia H describes how, as a teacher, she was force-fed the narrative about systemic racism in America. However, when Georgia was actually in the classroom, and again when she was working as a nurse, there was a chasm between what she was told and what she knew to be true – and of course, a chasm between what she knew to be true and what she was allowed to say.

Eventually, the stress of that cognitive dissonance (or doublethink) was too great. George H solved it by walking away and then telling others about her intellectual journey:

What’s especially nice about the video is that, once Georgia realized that the narrative was untrue, she was able to see Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez for what she really is: A completely uninformed, goofily appealing mouthpiece for a narrative that has no relationship to the real world. Georgia saw that the Democrat party was “a vapid laughing-stock.” She knew that thinking people should be embarrassed to be a part of it.

It’s an excellent video. If you watch it, be sure to read the notes that Georgia added when the video went viral.

Hat tip: Power Line.

Image: Georgia H. YouTube Screengrab.