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I’ve never tried to teach a pigeon to speak French, but I assume it’s impossible. Not dissimilar, it’s virtually impossible to change the mind of a diehard who steadfastly believes things that aren’t true — or refuses to believe things that are. I learned long ago not to try, and I suggest you don’t waste your time, either.

So here’s the thing: I’m not just talking about politics.

Try to convince someone who believes JFK was killed by the CIA, vs. Lee Harvey Oswald acting on his own, recently released documents notwithstanding. Or try convincing moon-landing deniers that the Apollo 11 mission did in fact land Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, vs. their belief that the whole thing was staged. Then try to convince former NBA great Shaq O’Neal and his fellow deniers that the earth isn’t flat. My advice: Instead, grab a pigeon and a French 101 book and have at it. While you’ll only annoy the pigeon, you might have more fun than wasting your time on any of the above examples.

So let’s switch to politics.

Have you tried to convince stage 4 TDS-riddled Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the band of fools who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, were not a legitimate “threat to democracy?”

Or, that Donald Trump could take over the federal government and destroy democracy in America? Good luck with that. Speaking of Trump, try to convince the former president and his diehard followers that the 2020 presidential election wasn’t “rigged,” “stolen,” or “illegitimate.”

Again, grab the pigeon and the French book and give that a shot, instead.

So why the inability to accept reality?

Consider the following explanation from David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Center for Anxiety:

Denial is defined as a cognitive and emotional process by which a person avoids facing aspects of reality, especially when it is difficult to assimilate the details of reality into one’s current thinking.

Arguably, denial is a coping or defense mechanism meant to address the tension that arises from trying to change an individual’s current way of thinking and understanding of reality.

Another form of denial is choosing to focus only on one’s perception of reality and struggling to see the other side of an argument. We can see this form of denial play out in COVID-19 pandemic denial and in certain political narratives.

Denial in its most potent form causes individuals to disconnect from any conversation around the salient topic, which can make denial even worse.

As the above relates to the Democrats and their irrational hatred of all things Donald Trump, they long ago convinced themselves that Trump was and remains guilty of everything with which they’ve charged him — regardless in most cases of the lack of substantive proof to back up their beliefs, from the Russian “collusion” hoax to what would be revealed by his tax returns and the unprecedented raid on his personal residence at Mar-a-Lago, to attempts to “overthrow” the federal government.

Of course, Trump’s continuing comments haven’t helped his cause.

Trump recently declared that released Twitter files “allow for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” and again announced him as the “rightful winner” of the 2020 election. Without revisiting everything wrong with Trump’s assertions and demands, neither the former president nor any of his various lawyers or diehard followers have produced substantive evidence even close to proving the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. That is a fact. And as the late Democrat statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, we are entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts.

Moynihan’s observation also applies to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, and every other Democrat who’d love nothing better than to see Trump charged with multiple crimes, convicted, and tossed into federal prison. Why? Because he’s Donald Trump.

By the way, let me know if you decide to attempt to teach a pigeon to speak French; I’d love to watch.