Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress and discomfort caused when important beliefs, attitudes or values, called cognitions, are inconsistent, conflicting or contradictory to each other. In the 1950s the psychologist Leon Festinger theorized that the mind spontaneously, continuously reduces cognitive dissonance to enable goal-directed functioning in a paradoxical, inconsistent, deceptive world. Festinger's discovery founded a rich tradition of research which has demonstrated how the mind resolves contradictions. It provides a powerful way to understand why people can't face what President Obama is doing to America.

Research has demonstrated countless times that cognitions do not have to be true to create dissonance, they just have to be believed. Barack Obama was elected to reduce the dissonance between the beliefs 'America is the land of the free', and the falsehoods 'America is still racist' and 'President Obama will go a long way to solving the problem of racism.' Because 'America is racist” is false, its corollaries are equally false. 'We must elect a black Democrat -- not black Republican -- because Republicans don't emphasize America is racist. Obama is fabulous, no need to know much about him, or whether he can lead the nation. He will make us feel better about ourselves'.

The antecedents of Barack Obama's hatred of America are now well understood. Obama was groomed from the womb to abhor this white majority, predominantly Christian free enterprise Republic. From his expatriate, capitalism-hating mother, from his alcoholic Communist father and his perv Communist mentor, detesting America was in his mother's milk and the blood in his veins. But it was the murderous Bill Ayers who recognized in Obama a destructive potential greater than a million bombs cooked up in basements. Ayers concocted the poison cocktail called Barack Obama that everybody wanted to drink, but nobody wanted to taste first.

America is Barack Obama's prey. He is tearing America apart and feeding the pieces of her life to his foreign and domestic fellow travelers. He is not transforming the nation but terminating it. Even the most transformational administrations haven't enabled the murder of Americans by declared enemies, weakened the national defense, mocked the concerns, and dimmed the hopes of average Americans as this president has. Even the highly transformational Franklin Roosevelt did not return Nazi generals to the enemy during the war as Obama did in the Bergdahl swap. Roosevelt did not entertain and enrich Nazi bigwigs as Obama has the Muslim Brotherhood. Imagine Roosevelt facilitating German atom bomb research and enriching the Axis powers as Obama has in the Iran deal. No president has erased the nation's borders at land and sea as Obama in advertising inducements for an invasion from around the world. No president in American history has aided enemies, undermined the economy and derided the American people as the current commander-in-chief.

The immensity of Obama's disloyalty is key to why people cannot face the truth about him.

If the Obama election were going to reduce the dissonance he would have started his administration thusly: “As I have said, we are one nation, going forward together. Mine will be the first truly color-blind administration in American history. Every appointment I make will be based solely on qualifications and proven competence without reference to race.” Of course, this is the opposite of what Obama did. He fine-combed through America searching for scraps of racism. He strengthened the lie that America is a racist nation as cover for his destruction. Amongst innumerable examples: Attorney General Holder introduced the Obama administration by implying the white majority are all racists, built a DOJ whose foremost concern is racism, carried forward by Loretta Lynch, who just said a street strewn with American corpses murdered by Jihadi terrorists is a “wonderful” opportunity to fight racism.

America is racist, so illegals can enter unchecked. America is racist, destroy her free markets, send billions to nonwhite people as “warmist” reparations for her ill-gotten success. America is racist, empower and enrich her enemies like Iran. Barack Obama and his ilk experience zero cognitive dissonance regarding the contradictory beliefs 'America is about freedom' and 'America is racist'. They never believed that America or her Constitution are about freedom. They believe the incurably evil and racist America must be eliminated for the good of the world.

Before the mass denial of Obama's hatred is explained by dissonance theory, let's mention subdissonant Americans. Subdissonant Americans have no discomfort whether America is about freedom or racism because they are too intellectually limited, dumbed-down, or drugged out to care. If asked “Why does the sun shine?” a six-year-old will answer, “That is what the sun is 'post to do.” This is termed the moral explanation of concrete thinking. Based on IQ distribution, approximately 15% of the population do not think beyond the moral explanation, and do not recognize a president who isn't doing what he is supposed to do. Other subdissonant groups are those too ill educated or addicted to care about freedom or racism.

Festinger's induced-compliance paradigm of dissonance theory explains why black Americans may be the last group to face Obama's destructiveness -- because his policies have hurt them the most. In a famous experiment, people were instructed to lie to others and say a boring task was interesting. The induced-compliance paradigm found that people paid only $1 to lie convinced themselves they were telling the truth more than people paid $20 to tell the same lie! This counterintuitive effect has been replicated many times. People who received minimal external motivation for managing dissonance -- those paid the least -- produced stronger internal justifications to deny their actual experience. The underpaid believed their own lies better than those paid twenty times more. The overpaid say, “I'm in it for the money, period.” This is why many very wealthy people slug the colada in Obama's banana republic while the poorest blacks continue to justify the president, even as they get poorer.

Obama is destroying America overtly and covertly. By promoting policies which are normalizing harmful drugs, undermining the natural family, and generally promoting moral chaos he slyly increases the number of subdissonant Americans, people too ill or distracted to care. He has brainwashed or bought off virtually the entire government including the Republican establishment. A noble people who years ago would have resolved dissonance by believing in America's goodness and standing firm against tyranny no longer do.

The social psychologist Elliot Aronson advanced cognitive dissonance theory, further explaining why people can't face Obama's hatred and destruction. Aronson's self-concept model theorized the central purpose of dissonance reduction is to preserve positive self-image (I am a good person) and self-justification (I was right all along). Because so many Americans now have been convinced we are a racist nation, to maintain a positive self-image people cannot face the truth about Obama.

The loss of opportunities and the diminishing of hopes which Obama's policies have inflicted create a monumental need for self-justification among his supporters. “The president shows us America is still racist. We were right all along.” They have let go the truth that America is about freedom. No one knows how many still stand upon that truth, how many care, or if there are enough big lies left to elect Hillary.