negotiated reality

When you tell a whopper of a lie with the expectation that people will believe a part of it. Similar to how things work in the real estate industry where someone who is trying to sell a property for $1 million will set a $1.2 million asking price. A politician might tell you that 4 US embassies are about to be attacked. Although no US embassies might be at risk, by lying and saying that 4 embassies were about to be attacked, you might walk away thinking that at least one embassy was at risk. One person on the left will say 0 embassies were at risk and the other will say 4 were at risk, so you end up thinking that an embassy was at risk because 1 is between 0 and 4.