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The Dubious Triumph Of Perception As Reality

The Icarian Posted on April 27, 2026 by adminApril 27, 2026

The Dubious Triumph Of Perception As Reality

It does not matter if the so-called assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Dinner was a setup or not.

Significant numbers of people think that it was, and nothing will change their viewpoint.

This is a direct result of the MAGA Reich’s decade-long assault not just on the truth, but on reality itself.

Along this way, this approach by the Reich backfired, and has generated a number of unintended consequences. This often happens when a certain technique or technology is arrogantly applied and the approach isn’t subjected to any kind of introspection, review or rethinking even when it is clearly going wrong.

Witness AI and unrestrained “predictive markets” gambling.

Perception and shaping reality is now the norm. But the right wing perception shapers failed to realize they don’t really control how the population, or large portions of the population, they are trying to control will process what they are being fed.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

The MAGA Failure of Perception As Reality
Drawing of Pinocchio, symbol of dishonesty The Dubious Triumph Of Perception As Reality: The MAGA Reich and it’s Dear Leader will never become a “real boy” because they’ve told too many lies, flooding the zone too many times.

The Dubious Triumph Of Perception As Reality: The MAGA Reich and it’s Dear Leader will never become a “real boy” because they’ve told too many lies, flooding the zone too many times.

Now they have lost the plot, lost control of the narrative. Their own hubris is hunting them.

By telling so many obvious lies, flooding the zone so many times, they killed the credibility and reality they tried to create. It actually drowned in their own floods of lies and misinformation.

Back to the dinner that became a perceptual political disaster.

The instant that word of this broke EVERYONE I know instantly reacted that it was fake. This was the prevailing sentiment online as well as in real life, except with the alleged president’s die-hard supporters and sycophants.

Instantly many obvious questions were asked that spontaneously created a perception resulting from a conditioned reaction created by a decade of countless MAGA lies.

How did a shooter get so close? Why wasn’t he gunned down when others have been? Why was the entire top power structure of the government in the same room at the same time when we are supposedly at war and allegedly facing terroristic threats from phantom sleeper cells? Why were all of these right wing politicos there in the first place, at an event celebrating the press they despise at an event they boycotted for years?

These are just the beginnings of the doubts. Questions about the obvious failure of the Secret Service and FBI to prevent this in the first place immediately became their own ecosystem of doubt.

The top leaders of the MAGA Reich didn’t help themselves with things that were said before the dinner and their reactions, caught in undeniable pictures, during and after the incident.

Pathological liar and seemingly natural born MAGA Reich press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, quoted saying “shots will be fired” before the event. Why would anyone say such a thing? Especially a mouthpiece known for saying inflammatory things.

The smirk on the face of the unconcerned POTUS to the surprise and fear on the face of his illegal immigrant wife. Why would you look like that, and not be facing towards the source of the alarm, as everyone else was?

Photos of the press cowering and fleeing, reinforcing the idea they are a cowardly bunch who are afraid to hold this administration to account.

The vice president being bundled up and hustled out of the room BEFORE the POTUS.

Googly-eyed, drunken party boy, and head of the FBI, Kash Patel, hiding under a table with abject fear on his face.

A photo showing the Secret Service allowed the POTUS to stay behind a not-at-all bullet-proof curtain, watching from the wings of a stage as if he wanted to see the show go down.

And what he watching? His top propagandist and architect of the cruel war on immigrants, Stephen Miller, apparently using his pregnant wife as human shield while guiding her with his hand firmly clamped on her right breast.

Then there was the after party press conference.

Even more than the chaos of the main event in the D.C. Hilton ballroom, this was perhaps the damning topper of the night, the cherry on the top of the Sunday sundae of the kind of bullshit that is the true signature of this administration.

Rather than be somber and serious — a tone that might befit and alleged assassination attempt that took place let than two hours before — what did we get?

The “press conference” quickly turned into sales pitch for an overly expensive ballroom that no one but one person really wants and has already has been the subject of enormous grift.

And, caught in pictures again, was the reaction of everyone around the POTUS. Smiles and laughter. This was over the top, even for this bunch of liars, sycophants and psychopaths.

Who are you gonna believe, photos of them and their actions or your lying eyes?

To reinforce the belief in the disbelief that this was not a setup, the event had the benefit for the administration of hijacking the news cycle for 72 hours. It is another distraction from the ongoing questions about the long-running, unstoppable Epstein scandal, the unwinnable war with Iran, the domestic war on immigrants, soaring prices and the undeniable rapaciousness of billionaires hoarding wealth to the detriment of 99.999% of the American people.

A very temporary mission accomplished in that regard. Again.

Less than two years into the train wreck of the second term of the MAGA Reich, many Americans are exhausted by the constant “zone floods”, lies, economic manipulation, misinformation and intentional erosion of our way of life. Even his supporters are feeling the effects, even if they are denial about the real reasons why.

Americans are tired of being tired by this unreal reality show and accompanying kleptocracy that is trying to pass for actual governing.

This is why substantial numbers of Americans no longer believe anything the MAGA Reich does isn’t for show, isn’t a setup, isn’t a lie, isn’t disinformation.

This is the result of perusing a political perception as reality approach that has backfired, even when it’s clear it is no longer working. They know no other way, and are incapable of acknowledging this is is not working, and simply can’t stop lying.

Within the Reich they know this. It’s why The Fascist is becoming more and more desperate, looking for ways to short circuit all remaining means of outside accountability.

It is why upcoming midterms, even with all the stops being pulled out on cheating of all kinds, will be very ugly.

That is, if the elections actually take place.

https://theicarian.substack.com/p/you-go-to-war-with-the-fascist-you

Posted in Blog, culture, history, politics | Tagged assassination attempt, flooding the zone, liars, lies, MAGA, perception as reality, White House Correspondants Dinner

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  • Karen Strickholm: A Posthumous Autobiography, Part 1 May 29, 2026
  • Martin Robison Delany: An Extraordinary, Sometimes Contradictory, Figure May 24, 2026
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Books That Killed Their Authors May 24, 2026
  • The Dog: Childhood Trauma And Our Nation’s Government Sponsored Cruelty May 11, 2026
  • The Dubious Triumph Of Perception As Reality April 27, 2026
  • Honoré de Balzac On Coffee – A Terrible And Cruel Method February 19, 2026
  • Miller And Goebbels: A One-Sided Love Story October 29, 2025
  • The Coming Subprime Car Loan Collapse October 17, 2025
  • Martial Law Would End America As We Know It October 16, 2025
  • Honoré de Balzac – The Human Comedy: Books That Killed Their Authors #8 September 9, 2025
  • Lammas or Lughnasadh? Let The Harvest Begin July 31, 2025
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  • Franz Kafka – A Hunger Artist: Books That Killed Their Authors #6 January 6, 2025
  • The Twilight Zone Of Our Democracy – The Brand Is Upon Us December 5, 2024
  • Halloween Came From An Irish Hole In The Ground October 27, 2024
  • Who Was FDR’s FIRST Vice President? No Googling September 5, 2024
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The Icarian On Mastodon

In the age of AI-all-the-things, the “true object” test will need defining and refining.
https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/ai-highlights-states-need-to-clarify-cloud-service-taxability

26 May 2026 @ 8:46 pm

As a broad NY sports fan that doesn’t pay much attention to basketball, it’s refreshing to see Knicks discourse that isn’t something like “with another abysmal season in the books, do we need to give them an official mascot and then euthanize it?”
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:sgoisgg5ihykk4rkmleqcsuu/post/3mmq6gvv2ls2g

26 May 2026 @ 11:25 am

Who is drafting this stuff?
"The employees and contractors of DOT responsible for inspections and other investigative functions must not use these authorities as a game of “gotcha” with regulated entities and should follow existing statutes and regulations."
https://frtracker.app/fr/2026-08144

26 May 2026 @ 1:23 am

50 final rules and 30 proposed rules last week, with a total of 338 obligations extracted from the final.
https://frtracker.app/weekly/2026-05-18

25 May 2026 @ 4:37 pm

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:6ma4ud7ovt2cpuj6bncaf6gw/post/3mmfpvdgshs24

23 May 2026 @ 10:57 pm

C’mon now, ya gotta have more faith in the obsequiousness of the Roberts court than that. What more need they do to prove their loyalty?
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:g6zrpwmibpkb6nkfweuns3mr/post/3mmgzty46rm2a

22 May 2026 @ 1:28 pm

“Balk” is a euphemism for “tacitly accept but just not today, maybe tomorrow.”
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x66qnnfwinx552tbbdpl7cay/post/3mmf2fstuys2m

21 May 2026 @ 6:46 pm

In retrospect this makes a lot of sense. Imagine how much worse the picture would look sans public funding. The rift with Trump was never going to go *too* far.
https://www.axios.com/2026/05/21/spacex-ipo-musk-ai

21 May 2026 @ 6:44 pm

Oof. That’s a mighty big “make what you will.”
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mhzk3blh4pfxo3fqh2meowbb/post/3mmeaxfkaqd2g

21 May 2026 @ 11:22 am

In other words: do not do this thing.
https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/federal-gas-tax-holiday-would-cost-a-lot-and-have-little-payoff

19 May 2026 @ 1:57 pm

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