A fact can either be true, false or … alternative?!
After a long process of denying, I finally have to admit to myself that the last six days haven’t been some sort of crazy dream, but that this actually is the reality. Donald Trump is president of the United States of America. Somehow, a small part of me wouldn’t let go of the secret hope that at some point someone would jump out of a box, declaring the whole thing a staged social experiment. Oh how I would have laughed in relief…
No, last Friday Trump was officially sworn into office and I am sure he loved it. With a tie that was so long and so broad and so red that it was basically screaming “I’m the greatest, richest, most powerful guy ever and you ladies better watch after your pussies”, he stood in front of the American people in Washington DC, talking about how it is going to be “America First” and how he was going to bring back the American Dream. But — what crowd was he actually talking to? He himself and the White House press secretary Mr. Sean Spicer referred to the crowd as being “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration. Period. Both in person and around the world”. Well, was it really? Because if you look at a photograph depicting the exact same area of the National Hall with Trump’s inauguration in 2017 on the left and Obamas inauguration in 2009 on the right side, it seems like there have never been so few people attending a president’s inauguration.
In fact, only one day after the press conference in which Mr. Spicer had slammed the media for false reporting and the attempt to “minimise the enormous support”, Kellyanne Conway, Counselour to the President, tells NBC news (after accusing the reporter of being “overly dramatic”) that Mr. Spicer didn’t tell any falsehoods but that he only offered “alternative facts”. And the reporter reacts just the way I did: “Wait a minute, alternative facts?!”, combined with a short laughter of pure disbelief. Yep, that’s what she said. No falsehood, no lies, just alternative facts, so there’s nothing to be dramatic about.
“Adjective: affording a choice of two or more things, propositions, or courses of action”. So basically, what Mrs. Conway sais is that whenever you are unhappy with the truth because it somehow appears a bit unpleasing to you, you can just make up some alternative facts and pretend like they are actually true. But — oh, no, how dare you! — don’t mistake alternative facts for lies or falsehoods. You might perceive the truth one way, but it doesn’t mean that everyone will.
If this is the logic that Trump and his government are acting by, then all the lies they told during his campaign also “only” were alternative facts. Something like “I would love to give my tax returns” or “I cherish women” or “Mexico will pay for the wall”.
What Trump is doing here is introducing “alternative facts” to deliberately discredit the media at every turn. It is a very useful thing to offer a parallel world in which lies are treated like truths and the real, uncomfortable truth is labelled false. Guys, this is dangerous, because there a people who believe him and his lies. They don’t question his made up stories, they don’t question the false promises he makes and they therefore are all very endangered of being trapped into a hateful, phobia-fomenting ideology.
I, personally, am very nervous about what the next four years are going to look like with “alternative facts” being used and believed instead of the truth. This is terrifying, especially coming from the office of the president of the United States. And I am afraid many of his supporters are going to follow his example. The only way this can be controlled and stopped, is by Trump’s opposers to gather, organise, speak up and take action. Things like the Women’s March that took place in 673 places all over the world in protest of Donald Trump’s presidency, gave me some hope and showed me that thankfully there are many people not willing to accept misogyny, fascism and hatred. According to The Telegraph, 4,814,000 participants marched. A number that must be very unpleasing to the President. But, let’s wait for it. Maybe he’ll also label the reported size of the protest as fake news and search for some “alternative facts” to ease his ego.
