 Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday. Last night I dreamt that there were two Ligars walking through my backyard, a Liger being the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. This struck me as pretty unusual and conceivably impossible, so I began to investigate the situation within my dream. I considered, for instance, that there is often wildlife in my backyard, deer, coyotes, foxes. One time I saw a beaver. It did seem unlikely that there would be two Ligars, given their rarity, but I reassured myself that they were probably brother and sister. Also, Ligars are not, uh, native to Indianapolis, so they had probably escaped captivity. And if you were an escaped Liger in Central Indiana, my backyard is one of the places you might seek out, because it is wooded and contains lots of potential food, mostly in the form of four million chipmunks. All in all, it seemed perfectly possible to me that sibling Ligars had escaped their cages to dine in my backyard. The problem, of course, is that my investigation of the Liger situation began with the conclusion there are Ligars in my backyard. And then I worked my way back to the story of how they came to be there, rather than pausing to consider that the Ligars I thought I saw might have been, for instance, deer, or that I might have been, say, dreaming. My friend Amy Cross Rosenthal once said correctly that nothing is less interesting than other people's dreams, and I apologize for introducing you to my subconscious, but I mention all of this because it seems to me that the Liger delusion is at the heart of a lot of contemporary discourse, especially around politics. You start with what you already know to be incontrovertibly true, that Republicans are crooks who only want to line the pockets of their wealthy donors, or that Democrats are crooks who want the government to control every aspect of human life, and then you look for the how and why. I mean, these days it can be difficult to even know when you believe in a conspiracy theory, in part because conspiracy theories are sometimes true, and in part because no matter the subject, the closer you look, the more you see. Put another way, the more you consider Ligars might be roaming Indianapolis, the more explanations you'll find for why. Take, for instance, the following conspiracy theory, which may, of course, prove to be true. Republican donor Elliot Broidy paid a woman over a million dollars not to discuss their alleged affair. That's known, but the conspiracy theory holds that the actual affair was between that woman and Donald Trump. And then Broidy stepped in to cover up that affair and make the payment. Now, if you look for explanations of why Broidy might have done this, you will find them. Broidy has profited tremendously from the Trump presidency. He also has a history of covering up affairs for his friends. And no, stop, because none of that means he covered up an affair for Trump. Of course, the same happens on the right, where conspiracy theories from Benghazi to Pizzagate are presumed true by many. But my worry is that many of us are falling into the trap of believing that we, however we define that, we are the ones alive to the real reality, while those who disagree with us are mere sheeple, a term that literally dehumanizes others. You see this all the time with people saying, Wake up, or keep dreaming, as if only those we disagree with can fall prey to the Lager delusion. What I have found while looking for Lagers is this. I am far more likely to believe in allegation to be true or to be important if it confirms my pre-existing worldview. And if it would challenge my worldview, I am likely to believe it to be false or else irrelevant. Sometimes on TV news or political radio or podcasts, you'll hear the phrase, We don't yet know all the facts, but, and then after the but comes some speculation or a statement of implication. Like, we don't yet know all the facts, but someone saw two Lagers in the backyard. We know that. Hank, I have to stop beginning with the conclusion. I have to stop speculating ahead of the story and instead wait for the facts to come out. And I have to stop saying but after we don't yet know all the facts. But I don't know how. This is the part of the video where I turn it around and find reasons to be hopeful and make a call to action. But I don't know how. I do think being aware of our conspiratorial instincts can be helpful, but I don't know how to escape the Lager delusion. Hank, I'll see you on Friday.