A lot of people seem to be mad at Trump. You might be one of them.
You probably think you know why youāre mad at him. For instance, you might not like what he said about the judge in a lawsuit heās involved with. Or maybe you didnāt like what he said about Rosie OāDonnell. 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 wouldnāt have listened anyway. Youāre smart enough to know that itās stupid to give someone else power over your emotional state. Like most of us, youāve learned that saying (or thinking) things like, āhe makes me so mad,ā means youāve surrendered control of your emotional well-being to somebody you donāt 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 becauseĀ .Ā .Ā . becauseĀ .Ā .Ā . 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 āpeople are mad about Trumpās commentsā had no influence on you. Nor did the fact that the media started covering the story shortly after Trumpās opponentās campaign released a statement calling on people to get angry about Trumpās 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 Iām sure you have fantastic, logical reasons for choosing to get mad today about something Trumpās been saying since at least November 2015. Itās 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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