Regarding the apparent mindless following of Obama: It has been a mystery to me why people ignore and make excuses for Obama’s negative actions. Then I found the reason in a book called “Cognitive Dissonance,” written by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1959. I later studied “Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me. Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions and hurtful acts,” by Dr. Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.

The simplest explanation: When our mistakes are brought to our attention, our feeling of self-worth is threatened. We must then calm the part of the brain that realizes the mistakes by creating fictions that absolve us of our responsibility for our decisions, thus restoring our belief that we as an individual are smart, moral and right. That belief then keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral and just plain wrong — hence the blind following of the current administration.