Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Alternative facts? Lyin photographs? Can’t we see the 46 percent who love Trump know what's best for all of us

I remember back when the government of mainland China held a press conference to publicly announce that all the protests against government back in 1989 at Tiananmen Square never happened.
The Chinese government officially says this 1989 moment broadcast by CNN and the world over never happened. Is that merely a use of alternative facts?

The protests that reportedly involved more than 100,000 people and gave us the iconic image of the man single-handedly standing in the path of a tank?

“PICTURES LIE,” IS what we were told by government officials. The whole tale of people speaking out against their government was just a plot by people who couldn’t accept the wisdom and the success of the Communist movement in China.

It’s laughable. It’s ridiculous and absurd.

Yet it also is what I couldn’t help but think of when we went through the weekend ordeal of being told that Donald J. Trump’s inaugural ceremonies were witnessed by more people live and on television than those of any other president in our nation’s history.

And when people tried to point out the absurdity of such statements, we were told by Trump mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway about the concept of “alternative facts” that will be her political legacy.

CONWAY IS THE one who showed us just how much she, and many of the Trump types who back her, have a touch of Chinese Communist in them. Or perhaps Russian authoritarianism and an appreciation for the strong-arm mentality.
Trump, from 'You're Fired!'...

That may be the reason they feel so at home with the people who run what once was the Soviet Union – which may have given up Communism but certainly still appreciates the approach of telling people when to shut up and do what their told.

Which is so much of what the Trump-type of voters appreciate – the idea of a boss who bellows “You’re Fired!” or barks out other orders, and expects them to be followed.

Now personally, I don’t care how many people actually showed up on the National Mall in Washington on Friday to see Trump take the oath of office.
... to "alternative facts"

THERE MAY BE a point to those people who look at the aerial photographs that compared Trump to the Barack Obama inaugural of 2009 and see that certain areas were blocked out, thereby spreading the crowd out thinner for the Trump event.

Personally, I think it’s mere trivia to worry about an exact figure of how many showed up – just like those people who forever argue against the Million Man March of 1995 by saying there weren’t one million people present on the very same National Mall.

Citing deceptive photographs literally comes down to adopting the Chinese strategy – which is one that no serious person on Planet Earth finds believable.

Just like the concept of “alternative facts,” which apparently is the ideologue response to the concept of “fake news.” Which shouldn’t be a surprise – since the ideologues have made it more and more clear that they’re not interested in hearing anything that contradicts the way they want to view the world.

AS FAR AS they’re concerned, they’re the ones engaging in truth as it should be, and it’s everybody else who’s telling stinkin’ lies – particularly those people who keep harping on Trump opposition or the 65 million who voted for Hillary Clinton, or a few million more who backed alternative candidates.

The fact that only 46 percent of the electorate wanted Trump to be president? That ignores the reality that many of those people who cast ballots against Trump are just ignorant, or had no business voting at all.
 
CONWAY: Alternative fashion?

A majority of the people who actually matter, as the Trump-ites view it, are totally satisfied with the electoral outcome and are looking forward to the coming weeks, months and years in which the real estate developer with the overbloated ego rams his thoughts down the throats of the American people. All for our own good because the 46 percent inherently know what is best for everybody.

Which sounds like a very authoritarian approach of governing to me! Even if Conway tries to justify it as “alternative facts,” which is a concept even more laughable than that outfit she wore for the inaugural speech.

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