Let's bring in scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at Ole Miss, an author of the forthcoming book, Suicidal Empathy.

Gad Sad, who really needs no introduction.

Gad, why is it seem like a lot of the people with the most severe cases of TDS are former cable news hosts.

Well, I can't speak to why they're former cable hosts, but I can tell you is what they're

exhibiting is something that we have long studied in psychology. So there's something called

the Semmelweis effect named after a Hungarian physician who identified what was killing

women who had just given birth.

It was because the doctors that were delivering the babies were not washing their hands

after having worked on cadavers.

Well, all the other physicians, no matter the amount of evidence that you showed them, we're going, la, la, la, I don't want to hear it, right?

This is exactly also the theory of cognitive dissonance.

I don't want to see any evidence that is contrary to that, which I already hold dearly in my brain.

And so no amount of evidence that suggests that Donald Trump is doing a good job is going to get these people to alter their anchored positions.

But isn't a sign of adulthood is being open-minded, is being mentally flexible, curious about new ideas, accepting new data and information?

Absolutely.

And if you look at, you were talking about cable news people, if you look at the top

podcasters, say Joe Rogan, well, what makes him so great, and the reason why he's built

such a platform is because he truly does come to every conversation

open-minded.

He doesn't have an a priori stance and no amount of evidence is going to shift them.

He says, hey, let's have a conversation and let's see where that takes us.

And because of that intellectual humility, he's been able to become the biggest podcaster.

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