About Trance
Researcher and Editor: Bryan Cooper
Understanding why facts don't change MAGA minds isn't just academic curiosity. It's essential for navigating American democracy in crisis. Trance is an independent publication launched in November 2025 by Bryan Cooper, dedicated to political research grounded in George Lakoff's cognitive political science. Lakoff's work is foundational for anyone seeking to understand how political worldviews actually form and why they prove so resistant to change.
Lakoff mapped the structure of conservative "strict father" morality and its hierarchy of dominance relationships. He documented how these frameworks operate unconsciously, filtering information before rational thought can fully engage. But Lakoff encountered something he didn't fully explain: a deep subconscious layer that blocks cognitive processing of contradictory information. He noted its existence and its effects, but didn't advance a theory of how it forms or how to recognize when it's operating in someone's speech.
Trance fills that gap.
The theory: People are naturally brought into the world through a form of hypnotic training by their parents. During ages zero through eight, children's brains operate in theta-dominant states, the same frequency associated with hypnotic trance in adults. In this naturally absorptive state, children don't learn beliefs through critical evaluation. They absorb frameworks directly from authority figures without filtering. This creates what Trance calls firmware, a pre-cognitive reactive layer that becomes the foundation of identity itself.
As the child develops language and conscious reasoning, a compatible, cognitive software layer forms on top. Beliefs, knowledge, and rationalizations build, but they must remain compatible with the underlying firmware. The two layers operate at different speeds: firmware reacts in milliseconds, assessing threats to identity before conscious thought can engage. Software then generates explanations for decisions the firmware already made. They are natural parts of human development. But not necessarily healthy when a child is raised with abusive or controlling parents.
This firmware explains what Lakoff and others observed but couldn't fully account for: the enormous difficulty of changing "strict father" beliefs through rational argument. When contradictory information arrives, the firmware performs threat assessment, perceives an attack on identity, and blocks the information. It directs the software layer to rationalize the rejection. "Fake news" is the easiest mechanism to spot because it's an explicit verbalization of this process. The firmware rejected the information, and the software produced a two word explanation.
A key Trance finding: "Superiority" programming may be the master key that makes the entire strict father system operational. The hierarchy isn't just a preference for order. It's a requirement that the person be positioned "above" others to maintain identity coherence. Every level of Lakoff's moral hierarchy (God above Man, Men above Women, Whites above Nonwhites, and so on) serves this function: validating the person's superior status. Challenges to any level threaten the entire structure, triggering immediate defensive reactions.
An area requiring further research: The full effects of hypnotically trained firmware remain to be explored. One hypothesis under investigation is that firmware may function like a post-hypnotic suggestion, filtering perception itself rather than just blocking or limiting cognitive processing. Under classic post-hypnotic suggestion, a person literally cannot perceive what they've been told isn't there. They're not rejecting evidence consciously. The evidence arrives already altered. If firmware operates this way, it would explain why both sides of the political divide accuse each other of not seeing "obvious" facts. Both may be right. Each may be perceiving a filtered reality, not raw input. This remains speculative and requires dedicated research, including interviews with people who have left the strict father framework about their subjective experience of information before and after.
Trance utilizes primarily unedited Claude research reports as its backbone, with commentary and analysis. Edited reports are provided as theory develops or new developments occur. A synopsis document is provided and updated as the research develops. Ghost Pages are available to find and review existing Trance work across multiple topic areas, from the psychology of threat to economic performance contradictions to the neurological evidence supporting specific hypotheses. Each such page has links to a Trance report and various details and commentary.
Trance also highlights support resources for people leaving the toxic strict father model of MAGA. Framework collapse is disorienting, and those breaking free deserve compassionate guidance rather than condemnation. Its hoped to help people better understand the 'strict father' archetype, how it was instilled, and share with others who've learned from their experience.
If you've wondered why your carefully reasoned arguments bounce off your relatives at Thanksgiving, why fact checking seems to strengthen rather than weaken false beliefs, or why millions support policies that harm them, Trance offers a framework for understanding. Not to judge, but to comprehend the architecture we're all navigating.
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