"Optimism" vs. "wishful thinking"

Many people confuse wishful thinking with optimism.  They're similar but not at all the same.

If you've analyzed a problem correctly, engineered correctly and built to plan, it's perfectly reasonable to hope whatever it is works--to be optimistic.  Entirely reasonable.

By contrast, wishful thinking is closing your eyes and hoping something works when you have no reasonable basis for thinking it will.  Example: "Half of the top pyrsyns in the biden gruberment are gay or tranny or demonstrable morons.  But their policies will have faaabulous results, cuz...good intentions."

The key to understanding wishful thinking is the term "wishing."  When a majority of the people on a committee--or running a government--are wishers instead of competent, the result is almost always disaster.