Imagine the opposite

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

One of my favorite classes in college was Logic and Critical Thinking. In that course, I learned how to obtain a larger and more complete view of the world around me. I learned that it’s healthy to routinely question my own beliefs. I also learned to identify manipulation from others, usually used to support their cause or worldview.

Though it lasted just a semester, the lessons I learned in that class will stay with me — a strong foundation that serves, more than anything, as a bonafide bullshit detector.

In the spirit of practicing logic and critical thinking, let’s engage in a thought experiment: let’s imagine the opposite. 

Imagine Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, and a mob of Democrats invaded the U.S. Capitol at the urging of their preferred candidate, who lost the election but claimed to have actually won because it was “stolen” from him. Imagine these Democrats savagely beat police officers, smeared feces on the walls and ransacked the historic building. Imagine a handful of officers lost their lives to the violence. 

Now, let’s imagine a Democrat won the 2024 election and, just weeks into the term, the newly elected president pardoned about 1,500 of these leftist insurrectionists, calling them “political prisoners” and honoring them with galas and laudatory language.

Imagine this fictitious Democratic president also received about $300 million in campaign donations from the richest man in the world — a wealthy, left-wing activist who then becomes the leader of a quasi-legit governmental agency tasked with eliminating governmental waste. This unelected billionaire lays waste to federal programs like Social Security and Medicare, firing hundreds of thousands of Americans while chuckling and revving a chainsaw on stage to gloat about how good of a job he’s doing.

Meanwhile, this same billionaire receives about $8 million of taxpayer money every day from government contracts. What’s more, the Democratic president even promotes the billionaire’s automobile company right on the White House lawn, urging all Americans to buy one of his vehicles.

Imagine this liberal president going golfing every week, costing taxpayers around $3 million each time he goes, all the while touting how government spending is “out of control.”

Imagine this make-believe Democratic president erasing the courageous deeds of American servicemen and women because of their heterosexual identity. Perhaps he scrubs a Medal of Honor recipient’s story from federal websites because they are a man who loves a woman. Maybe the president purges all mentions of another heroic Marine’s sacrifice for his country because he was a man. 

Imagine this fake Democratic president calling soldiers who died in war “losers” and “suckers.” Imagine the outrage you’d see on Fox News.

Imagine the Democratic president allying with a Communist dictator who is infamous for crimes against humanity, turning a blind eye while this dictator invades and conquers a sovereign nation. Now imagine this president threatening to invade our neighbor and longtime ally, Canada — whose soldiers fought and died alongside American soldiers in World War II — joking that it will be the “51st state.” Imagine he also threatens to take Greenland and Panama, with or without using military force.

Imagine this Democrat causes enough instability in the world order that gas prices go through the roof, egg prices soar, the stock market loses trillions in value and NATO actually considers the possibility of a war with America because our country is considering invading sovereign nations in order to annex them as our own.

Imagine this Democratic president was also convicted of 34 felonies before being elected to the highest office in the land, but the courts refused to sentence him and all the cases were suspended or dropped entirely. That same convicted felon — now president — states during his first couple of months in office that only he and the attorney general can interpret law (to hell with the other two branches of government), and furthermore, that he is immune from any accountabilty for whatever actions he commits while serving as president.

Now imagine this president saying that he plans to seek a third term in office. When told that’s in direct violation of the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, he just shrugs and says with a smirk, “There are methods. We’ll see.”

In life, it’s important to imagine the opposite to see if our beliefs hold up when they’re promoted by a person or group diametrically opposed to your own. Patriotism is not blindly following your party because it happens to be in power. Real patriotism means asking yourself, “Is this really what America is?”

Well, is it?