Alternative Facts
Trump has had a busy first weekend in office, attempting to eviscerate the ACA by executive order, ordering a federal hiring and pay freeze, reinstating the Global Gag Rule, blocking a policy that kept mortgage costs low, freezing new or pending regulations, and withdrawing from the TPP (can't say I'm upset about that one, but it was already stalled in Congress, anyway). With all that going on, he still had time to brag about the size of his... inaugural crowds.
Now, I understand that some men have difficulty estimating size. Trump has had to defend his size estimates before. (Small hands?) Although given how Rubio caved on Trump's Secretary of State nominee, I'm pretty sure Trump is convinced his is, at least, bigger than Rubio's.
But this weekend's feud about whether his inaugural crowds were larger than Obama's (they weren't) or the Women's March on Washington (they weren't) was ridiculous. There was ample photographic evidence to disprove his claims. He sent Sean Spicer out to assert that the media somehow conspired to lie about the size of the crowds. Because, as we know, the media is a single, monolithic entity with the sole purpose of lying about Donald Trump. Because everything is about him.
You've all heard, read, and ridiculed Kellyanne Conway's ridiculous assertion that such a thing as "alternative facts" can exist, and cheered Chuck Todd's answer that "alternative facts" aren't facts, they're falsehoods.
Good for you. Conway deserves ridicule. Todd deserves cheers. Spicer deserves exactly the punishment he's getting: To work for Donald Trump. We all needed something to laugh about.
And we need to take a hard look at the truth of propaganda and its use by authoritarians in power. We also need to look at what this brouhaha may be intended to conceal by its distraction.
Spicer called the media's reporting "egregious" and "deliberately false." Trump called the press the "most dishonest people on earth." This is an ongoing refrain from a campaign, and now an administration, that considers facts the enemy.
As a young woman, I came within a hair's breadth of calling off my wedding. The invitations had been sent, the flowers ordered, the church scheduled, and the lovely, generous gifts were piling up, when my fiancé insisted there was no pay disparity between men and women. I cited article after article, including one freshly published in Time magazine, which may have been what prompted the discussion to begin with. Instead of presenting any evidence to support his position, my then-fiancé called the mainstream news sources liberally biased, and simply asserted his own, non-factual views.
By the way, I was right. The pay gap when we had that argument in 1988 was huge; women earned 66% of what men did.
But that didn't matter to my then-fiancé, any more than it matters to our now-President. When your position is indefensible, when your ego is fragile, and when you live in an alternate reality, facts are the worst possible thing for someone to present. When you can't win a fact-based argument, dismiss the facts as biased or irrelevant.
Here's the real issue: Are we living in a world where facts no longer matter? I've always believed each person is entitled to form his own opinion, but facts are facts; immutable, objective, and sacrosanct. How can we engage in discourse with someone who won't accept the facts?
Answer: We can't.
Without a common understanding of the underlying reality, a mutual acceptance of facts, and a modicum of objectivity, there is no discourse. There is only assertion. The loudest, most tenacious voice wins.
Trump's propagandists are not as skilled as Joseph Goebbels, a name that keeps surfacing these days. One of Goebbels' most fundamental tenets of effective propaganda is that the propaganda must be credible. Most of Donald Trump's claims are anything but.
But could it be that the public is less discerning today than we were during the 1930's and 40's? We seem pretty susceptible to manipulation, to fake news, to "alternative facts."
About a third of Americans will believe anything Trump tells them. They are right there with him, suspicious of the (genuine) facts, suspicious of the educated "elite," suspicious of being told what they don't want to hear, and proud of their folksy ignorance of science, technology, statistics, economics, history, and more. When the facts belie their notions, the facts must be wrong. They crave "alternative facts." They admire Donald Trump for "cutting the BS" and "speaking his mind." Never mind that his mind is devoid of facts, reason, erudition, or critical thinking. They will go right along with him when he contradicts what he said before, and believe him when he says he never said those things at all, even though they heard him say them at the time.
Another third of Americans recognize the lies for what they are, are appalled and incredulous that Trump can get away with the nonsense he spews, and even write blog posts that hardly anybody reads about the lies. (I'll put myself in this category.) We didn't vote for Trump. Fundamentally, we don't comprehend the Americans I mentioned above. Can't they see that none of what this man says is true? Why are they willing to excuse his horrid behavior? Don't they recognize him for the con artist he is?
And then, there are the ones in the middle. They float in the middle for a variety of reasons. Some of them succumb to the repetition of lies and begin to question the facts. Some of them are just frustrated and think any changes that occur have to be better than the current situation. Some of them want very much to be "moderate" in an era that defies moderation. Some of these folks held their noses and voted for Trump, but don't really support him. Some of these folks held their noses and voted for Clinton, but don't really support her.
But it is impossible to stay in the middle and be true to the facts. These folks are the reason for Trump's vacillating approval ratings.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler talked about the Big Lie. Donald Trump's lies, so far, have been mostly small ones. But read what Hitler had to say:
The broad masses are more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously. This is true, isn't it? Demagogues play on our fears, at the same time telling us we're the best thing ever. This is the essence of nationalism. This is the essence of Donald Trump.
So what about those people in the middle? Most of them are already embarrassed about Trump, or will be. They are aghast now, or will be. They can be persuaded not to support the worst of Trump's ideology and agenda. These are the people we need to reach. These are the people who don't hate facts. These are the people who prefer not to live in an alternate reality.
I am hopeful that Americans will quickly tire of having a president who refuses to accept facts. I am counting on the media to continue to expose his lies. And I am watching and waiting to see whether his "alternative facts" will transition from small lies to the Big Lie.
Did you notice all the executive orders he's signed? Can you list them? If not, the distraction may have worked.
Now, I understand that some men have difficulty estimating size. Trump has had to defend his size estimates before. (Small hands?) Although given how Rubio caved on Trump's Secretary of State nominee, I'm pretty sure Trump is convinced his is, at least, bigger than Rubio's.
But this weekend's feud about whether his inaugural crowds were larger than Obama's (they weren't) or the Women's March on Washington (they weren't) was ridiculous. There was ample photographic evidence to disprove his claims. He sent Sean Spicer out to assert that the media somehow conspired to lie about the size of the crowds. Because, as we know, the media is a single, monolithic entity with the sole purpose of lying about Donald Trump. Because everything is about him.
You've all heard, read, and ridiculed Kellyanne Conway's ridiculous assertion that such a thing as "alternative facts" can exist, and cheered Chuck Todd's answer that "alternative facts" aren't facts, they're falsehoods.
Good for you. Conway deserves ridicule. Todd deserves cheers. Spicer deserves exactly the punishment he's getting: To work for Donald Trump. We all needed something to laugh about.
And we need to take a hard look at the truth of propaganda and its use by authoritarians in power. We also need to look at what this brouhaha may be intended to conceal by its distraction.
Spicer called the media's reporting "egregious" and "deliberately false." Trump called the press the "most dishonest people on earth." This is an ongoing refrain from a campaign, and now an administration, that considers facts the enemy.
As a young woman, I came within a hair's breadth of calling off my wedding. The invitations had been sent, the flowers ordered, the church scheduled, and the lovely, generous gifts were piling up, when my fiancé insisted there was no pay disparity between men and women. I cited article after article, including one freshly published in Time magazine, which may have been what prompted the discussion to begin with. Instead of presenting any evidence to support his position, my then-fiancé called the mainstream news sources liberally biased, and simply asserted his own, non-factual views.
By the way, I was right. The pay gap when we had that argument in 1988 was huge; women earned 66% of what men did.
But that didn't matter to my then-fiancé, any more than it matters to our now-President. When your position is indefensible, when your ego is fragile, and when you live in an alternate reality, facts are the worst possible thing for someone to present. When you can't win a fact-based argument, dismiss the facts as biased or irrelevant.
Here's the real issue: Are we living in a world where facts no longer matter? I've always believed each person is entitled to form his own opinion, but facts are facts; immutable, objective, and sacrosanct. How can we engage in discourse with someone who won't accept the facts?
Answer: We can't.
Without a common understanding of the underlying reality, a mutual acceptance of facts, and a modicum of objectivity, there is no discourse. There is only assertion. The loudest, most tenacious voice wins.
Trump's propagandists are not as skilled as Joseph Goebbels, a name that keeps surfacing these days. One of Goebbels' most fundamental tenets of effective propaganda is that the propaganda must be credible. Most of Donald Trump's claims are anything but.
But could it be that the public is less discerning today than we were during the 1930's and 40's? We seem pretty susceptible to manipulation, to fake news, to "alternative facts."
About a third of Americans will believe anything Trump tells them. They are right there with him, suspicious of the (genuine) facts, suspicious of the educated "elite," suspicious of being told what they don't want to hear, and proud of their folksy ignorance of science, technology, statistics, economics, history, and more. When the facts belie their notions, the facts must be wrong. They crave "alternative facts." They admire Donald Trump for "cutting the BS" and "speaking his mind." Never mind that his mind is devoid of facts, reason, erudition, or critical thinking. They will go right along with him when he contradicts what he said before, and believe him when he says he never said those things at all, even though they heard him say them at the time.
Another third of Americans recognize the lies for what they are, are appalled and incredulous that Trump can get away with the nonsense he spews, and even write blog posts that hardly anybody reads about the lies. (I'll put myself in this category.) We didn't vote for Trump. Fundamentally, we don't comprehend the Americans I mentioned above. Can't they see that none of what this man says is true? Why are they willing to excuse his horrid behavior? Don't they recognize him for the con artist he is?
And then, there are the ones in the middle. They float in the middle for a variety of reasons. Some of them succumb to the repetition of lies and begin to question the facts. Some of them are just frustrated and think any changes that occur have to be better than the current situation. Some of them want very much to be "moderate" in an era that defies moderation. Some of these folks held their noses and voted for Trump, but don't really support him. Some of these folks held their noses and voted for Clinton, but don't really support her.
But it is impossible to stay in the middle and be true to the facts. These folks are the reason for Trump's vacillating approval ratings.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler talked about the Big Lie. Donald Trump's lies, so far, have been mostly small ones. But read what Hitler had to say:
"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes."People do doubt and waver when presented with outright lies, because most of us wouldn't consider lying like that. Most of us find it hard to believe our elected leader(s) would just make stuff up off the cuff, or worse yet, carefully plan to deceive us. Because mostly, people don't do that.
The broad masses are more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously. This is true, isn't it? Demagogues play on our fears, at the same time telling us we're the best thing ever. This is the essence of nationalism. This is the essence of Donald Trump.
So what about those people in the middle? Most of them are already embarrassed about Trump, or will be. They are aghast now, or will be. They can be persuaded not to support the worst of Trump's ideology and agenda. These are the people we need to reach. These are the people who don't hate facts. These are the people who prefer not to live in an alternate reality.
I am hopeful that Americans will quickly tire of having a president who refuses to accept facts. I am counting on the media to continue to expose his lies. And I am watching and waiting to see whether his "alternative facts" will transition from small lies to the Big Lie.
Did you notice all the executive orders he's signed? Can you list them? If not, the distraction may have worked.
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