As I noted in an earlier Post, I’ve come to see the Democratic and Republican parties as a “similar pair.” For over a year, I’ve been closely following political news articles and blogs, paying equal attention to their comment sections. This isn’t my first dive into their similarities, but over the past 4-6 months, this exploration has left me puzzled: why can’t two such apparent political foes see their own parallels—especially in the ways they criticize each other?!

‘Good or bad, our feelings color how we see people’

I occasionally use The New Neo blog as my Muse 😁 – this post caught my eye today: “The enormous value of lies as propaganda”. Commenter Niketas Choniates on March 19, 2025 at 1:36 pm brings up Trapped Priors in neo’s post. The New Neo blog often drifts to posts or comments about old friends who caught the TDS virus and never recovered [SARC]. I may have been the first to coin the term – TCS (Trump Cultist Syndrome). Left-wing blogs reject both TDS and TCS terms, while many right-wing comment sections will attack you for using such negative MAGA terms.

Trapped Priors

Several explanations on the term:

• Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality – Niketas Choniates linked in comment.

• Google AI Overview:

In the context of psychology and rationality, “trapped priors” refer to strong, deeply ingrained beliefs or perceptions that are resistant to change, even in the face of new evidence or experiences. These priors can lead to biased thinking and difficulty in updating one’s understanding of the world.

• Grok 3 take:

“Trapped priors” is a fascinating concept that highlights a key challenge in human reasoning and rationality. It describes those stubborn, deeply held beliefs—our “priors” in Bayesian terms—that we cling to, even when confronted with evidence that should prompt us to rethink them. The term comes up in discussions of psychology and epistemology, where it’s seen as a barrier to updating our mental models of reality.

I’m not going to delve into Bayesian terms or Bayes’ theorem, as Trapped Priors seems to address my questions about the Democratic and Republican parties being a “similar pair” in their “biased thinking.”

Conclusion

Trapped Priors also explains why “intelligent” old friends would lie or believe such, or why one would attempt to ‘eDiT’ a video by creating their own “transcript” of the desired version. Example:

T: [nods] They gave a lot, but they gave much less.

Z: No, no!

T: Don’t argue. [Trump smiles, leans in, gives Zelensky little pat]

Z: No, no! [said this time in a sort of whiney-jokey way, with a slight smile]

T: Much less.