The Reality Based Community

[Xipe Totec]

The phrase was attributed by journalist Ron Suskind to an unnamed official in the George W. Bush administration who used it to denigrate a critic of the administration's policies as someone who based their judgements on facts. In a 2004 article appearing in the New York Times Magazine, Suskind wrote:

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' ... 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

International relations scholar Fred Halliday writes that the phrase reality-based community (in contrast to faith-based community) was used "for those who did not share (the Bush administration's) international goals and aspirations". The source of the quotation was guessed to be Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove, although Rove has denied saying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

Doesn't quite work for Pandemics, does it? Can't change this reality, can't argue with it, can't hide it, can't pretend it doesn't exist. Act away, history's actors. The reality based community will be here waiting when you get back from la la land.

[JHB]

1. It didn't work then, either

That acting without judicious study didn't give them the "new reality" they imagined, it just created a bigger mess.

But bowling things over is all they knew. The aide has subsequently been tagged as being Karl Rove. Blowing off accepted norms was his stock in trade. Even that runs out after it burns down enough norms. Rove and others like him <cough>Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson<cough> spent their careers paving the road to Trump.

[EarnestPutz]

2. I don't remember it being attributed to Karl Rove, but I do remember....

.....the breath-taking arrogance of the Bush administration that it illustrated.

[orwell]

3. Actually it works quite well...

...we are seeing it right now in front of our eyes.

A significant portion of the population listens to Shit Gibbon lie to their face every, sees thousands of people dying and are still willing to believe him.

They are preparing to lift the national recommendations based on nothing and the stock market rallies.

They are telling people to their face that they don't care if you die as long as the financial markets recover.

They blatantly told the citizens of Wisconsin yesterday that they would allow people to risk death if it means they have a slightly better chance at winning an election and they are still in office.

Religious leaders have told their congregation to risk their lives to come to church because Jeebus commands them to.

It seems to be that things have gotten worse not better for those of us in the reality community.