Crazy idea. Maybe Mike was likley to agree with any line of reasoning, true or false, simply because he found himself in a situation where his opinion was utterly out of sync with that of his peer group.

I don't know why but I can imagine the exact same situation 200 years earlier where Mikey was the only one in the group who voted for that snake Lincoln and after some rational thought realized his reasons where wrong and we had a happy evening discussing whether the union will hold rather than calling him a traitor.