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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It was nice knowin’ ya, Kirk. Welcome to the Senate, Tammy Duckworth

The most embarrassing part of Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., managing to put his foot in his mouth during his debate this week with Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth?
 

KIRK: Still removing foot from mouth

It’s the fact that Kirk gave Donald Trump and his political camp a legitimate reason to mock the man.

KIRK HAS BEEN going out of his way to distance himself from the Trump presidential campaign for being too sexist and bigoted to be representative of the people. So naturally, Kirk makes a remark during the debate that is interpreted as an ethnic slur on Duckworth – who was born in Thailand to parents with U.S. citizenship who lived and worked in several Southeast Asian nations before she settled in this country at age 16.

Anytime that Trump political operative Kellyanne Conway can call out Kirk for stupidity, you know is a bad moment that you don’t recover from politically.

The fact that Conway used Twitter to make her attack likely only makes it all-the-more lasting. That tweet ain’t goin’ noplace. It likely will keep cropping up for the remainder of Kirk’s life, and may even make it into his eventual obituary. That attempt at an apology he made Friday? Already forgotten about!

So what was it that happened during Thursday night’s debate between Kirk – a former Naval Reserve officer – and Duckworth, who wants to make sure the world knows she lost her legs while serving in combat during the Gulf War of the early 1990s?

DUCKWORTH HAS ALWAYS made a point of letting people know of her support for military issues and causes, and likes to talk of how she comes from a military family. Supposedly, family members fought as far back in time as the American revolution.

 

DUCKWORTH: Illinois' new senator?

Which could be true, as her father served in the Marine Corps and he was far from the first in the family to enlist for a stretch of military service. Except that Repubicans usually want to believe that if they were a "legitimate" military family, Republican partisan genes would have taken root. The fact that Tammy turned out Democrat must make her suspect -- in GOP minds.

Kirk came up with the wisecrack that I’m sure he thinks is particularly witty and was meant to put that woman in her place. As in, “I forgot that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

The VoteVets organization on Friday trashed Kirk. Group Chairman Jon Soltz called the wisecrack “racist” and said, “Mark Kirk can say whatever he wants, but (Thursday) night he made clear that he will run his campaign, and the office of senator, the same way Donald Trump has run his campaign – based on racial and ethnic slurs, insults and tarring non-whites as not sufficiently American.”

 

CLINTON: Equally responsible for Duckworth

DUCKWORTH HERSELF ISSUED her own critical statement, although the key part of her effort was less to blast Kirk than to ask people for money. “Can you chip in right now to help me respond to this disgraceful attack?” she said.

Which makes me wonder how she would have asked for the campaign contribution if Kirk had kept his mouth shut and behaved himself Thursday night.

The sad thing is this won’t be the reason that Kirk likely loses his re-election bid a week-and-a-half from now. His campaign already was lagging due to the fact that Illinois leans Democrat and likely has a majority of voters fully comfortable with both of the state’s U.S. senators being of the Democratic persuasion.

In the interest of disclosure, I should point out that I was among those voters when I cast my own ballot this week through early vote. Perhaps Kirk would have a better chance of getting re-elected if he were seeking the Indiana seat – although even there Democrats are hopeful (although maybe too optimistically) they can win this year.

IT’S ALL ABOUT the concept that Trump has spread so much rhetorical manure that he’s given an overall stink to the concept of being a Republican.

 

CONWAY: Used Twitter to treat Kirk like a twit

Which is why it is sad that Kirk would get caught up in this particular bit of nonsense – since it probably gives Trump and his backers some sense of cockiness in thinking they would have looked out for Kirk if he had really been one of their own.

But since he wasn’t, then forget him!

And the likely outcome will be a Duckworth victory. Only she had better be careful, because her re-election bid of 2022 will not have a presidential campaign to leech off of. She’ll have to convince Illinoisans she’s worthy of retention – unless she wants to be nothing more than a one-termer.

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