Alternate
facts.
These two words, expressed by President Trump’s mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway,
tell us what the presidency of the man who lost the popular vote by nearly
three million voters will be like.
We’ve
seen this before – in the fictional world of George Orwell’s 1984.
We
are in the era of fake news, some of which is perpetuated by the president and
his new regime. We’re also in the era of
Big Ignorance, where the misinformed lead the uninformed. Trump, the first president to not have any
prior elected office or military experience, champions lies to a public that
buys it up, some willingly and some because they lack the ability to discern
fact from fraud.
Trump
is consistent. He was a nasty, petty,
fact-challenged candidate – and he is no different now that he holds the
highest office in the land.
As a
writer, book promoter, and just a citizen of our free democracy, I’m deeply
troubled and gravely concerned about what is happening between Trump and the
media. Aside from it being an annoying
and distracting side show from the important business of the country, this
latest blow up shows that Trump can’t be trusted and that the media will need
to work doubly hard to report the facts and defend itself.
Those
who supported Trump because they were excited about a businessman creating jobs
and lowering taxes can’t be happy that the guy they bet on his focusing her attention and resources to spread and defend lies on topics that are not as
critical as the issues that need to be addressed. Trump himself painted a bleak picture, albeit
a distorted and disproportionately dark one, of America. So why would his press
secretary call a press conference-his first-purely to discuss press reports
about how many people came to witness his coronation?
It
was done either because:
He
believes his truth (crazy).
He
hopes to fool people (plausible).
He
wants to distract from the millions who marched against him (bingo).
He
is laying the ground work for how he hopes to treat the media (red hot).
When
he got elected I was convinced he would make it for eight years if he delivers
on improving the economy – no matter anything else that he destroys. Now I’m not so sure. He can easily get impeached because he is
driven by ego and not anything else. His
desire for revenge and to get into public spats could lead to all kinds of
conflicts, lawsuits, or legal ethics violations. If his party gets fed up with him it would
only take a few to join the 100% impeach-now Democrats to kick him to the curb.
I
think to combat this president, we need to double-down on being informed,
fact-checking, and supporting the news media.
We should all read 1984 again,
for the lessons of that novel may be coming true today. Trumpspeak, unfortunately, is coming to
represent falsehoods.
In
another Orwellian move, as Trump was sworn in, the White House website was
immediately transformed and scrubbed of references to climate change and other
realities of the world. This goes
hand-in-hand with appointing people who know nothing of the department, their cabinet
position calls for, and for appointing people who wanted to abolish the departments
they head, such as the head of EPA and the one for Energy.
I
keep coming back to Lord of the Flies, 1984,
and Gulliver’s Travels when I look at
the political landscape today. I didn’t
realize that books I’d read 35 years ago would start to resemble the world I
live in.
There
are no alternate facts when it comes to Trump or, President Pinnochio. I call upon all literate, caring, decent
human beings to band together and stand up to the tirading tyrant. Don’t let him bully us with fear-mongering,
lies, and alternate facts. He has a Napoleon complex that endangers all of us.
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