WITH a week until the Scottish Parliament returns, we will soon see the end of "silly season" stories of train carriages and summer political gossip.

Sadly, that will likely end my re-acquaintance with The West Wing – the now classic US political drama.

But one particular episode does hold a fitting metaphor for the parliamentary term ahead.

In season two, the fictional "Organisation of Cartographers for Social Equality" shock senior White House staff by demonstrating that the world isn’t how they thought it was. In fact, its landmasses are a completely different relative size. They present the Mercator projection, the widely used Western map of the globe, and contrast it with the Gall-Peters projection. The former exaggerates the size of countries the further they are from the equator.

Greenland appears as the same size as Africa on the Mercator projection, when in reality it is 14 times smaller. You can see the differences yourself on thetruesize.com.

The same can be true on a national level. TV weather maps of Scotland, usually set hovering over the Central Belt, place the likes of Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides on the periphery. Flip the map, place Inverness at the centre, and you gain a totally new geographical perspective.

Following political news, especially online, you get the sense of large tribes following events with completely different maps of the world. There were two examples that jumped out at me in the past week from the United States.

The first was the new fad of describing the extreme-right of US politics the "alt right". This trendy phrase has emerged to describe the mesh of groups propelling the wild presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Its followers say they are anti-establishment patriots and true conservatives. Within a certain echo chamber, this message rebounds so ferociously that it has become a dangerous battle cry of political extremism.

To observers of America’s racial and social divisions, the phrase "alt right" is a whitewash of its racist and violent attitudes. Some of its loudest advocates openly embrace conspiracy theories about their government and the wider world. Donald Trump himself was one of those most loudly questioning whether Barack Obama was really American, amplifying an odd cult-protest called the "Birther movement".

When you’re desperate, you might cling on to whatever is around you. American republicanism – especially under Reagan – is renowned for getting millions of poor people to vote against their economic self-interest. Trump, however, is taking this even further.

He inherited his vast wealth, bulldozed across the US to build a business empire, all the while profiting from the labours of his low-paid staff. Last week, he stood on stage with ex-commodities trader Nigel Farage, to present their ideals as an alternative to "the establishment".

Farage, subconsciously aware of the irony, said he was the opponent of “the big banks”.

The crowd lapped it up. And for those ensconced in a deep loathing of Hillary Clinton, it makes sense. Throughout their lives, they’ll have seen and read of the hypocrisy of "liberals", feared the "war on Christmas", and dreaded the "dangers of socialism".

Trump, that bulldozing brutish businessman, appears like just the ticket to sort all that nonsense out.

Understandably, some political academics stick their noses up at what they see as a rush of blood to the head. It’s termed "post-truth politics" – and has been applied to various grassroots efforts, from Trump and Brexit to Corbyn and the independence movement.

And while this criticism can be justified, I hesitate to believe it is an isolated or recent phenomenon.

Take last year’s vote to bomb Syria – based on the misrepresentation of supposed UK government intelligence advice that there were 70,000 "moderate" troops to support efforts. Post-truth politics?

Look back to the invasion of Iraq, where US and UK "intelligence" was distorted to deceive. Post-truth politics?

Even back during the most bloody years of the First World War, Prime Minister Lloyd George – confiding in the editor of the Manchester Guardian – said: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow.

“But of course they don’t know, and can’t know.”

What type of behaviour qualifies as deception often depends on how someone sees the world.

Those impassioned by political causes can be prepared to accept the contradictions of candidates to remain loyal.

The servants of power and institutions are prepared to look beyond policies that do harm, believing ultimately that they are responsible for a greater good. Both groups can have a form of cognitive dissonance – which excludes information that doesn’t fit with a pre-existing picture.

As parliament returns, it’s worth reflecting from whatever vantage point you occupy on the political or economic spectrum that the source of disagreements can often be much deeper that a difference of view.

For some, it’s like living in a different reality, looking at the world with a different map.