EDITORIAL: 'Alternative Facts' call into question integrity of administration
Last week, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.
In Trump’s mind, it was the grand opening paragraph to the Trump chapter of American history, complete with a large crowd of fans and detractors alike.
That’s not what he got, but don’t tell that to President Trump.
Anyone watching the event on live TV could see the inauguration was not a sold-out show. The reality of the sparse turnout was even more clear to members of the press on the ground — including reporters from Central Michigan Life.
As eye-witnesses, we stand by our assertion that this was simply not the highest-attended inauguration in the nation’s history, a statement Trump, Press Secretary Sean Spicer and surrogate Kellyanne Conway would not have us believe.
Any statement otherwise is lie, or as Conway put it: an “alternative fact.” The use of the term spits in the face of intelligent, hard-working Americans who deserve elected leaders who level with them on the truth.
We call on Conway, Spicer and President Trump to come clean, apologize to the press corps, and vow to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help them God.
We know, however, that’s too much to ask from three political operatives with skin thinner than the Inauguration Day crowd.
The fact that our highest elected official would spin a web of lies over something so insignificant as inauguration attendance is beyond wrong — it is autocratic and un-American.
By all accounts, the anti-Trump, Women’s March on Washington staged one day afterword handily dwarfed the entire affair. Still, Trump refuses to accept the facts. Instead, he’s made up his own.
Trump quickly began embarking on a propaganda campaign to fudge his attendance numbers. He issued decrees of deceit, and forced Spicer to blame every media outlet under the sun for fibbing about the size of his inauguration — even though we have video and photos and live quotes to prove it.
The Trump trifecta’s propensity to willfully subvert the truth to protect their own frail egos reeks of totalitarian fascism. It is a common and well-documented tactic of vilified dictators — the kind we learned to despise in school as true patriotic Americans.
On social media, people are making light of Conway’s alternative facts line. They created a slew of new hashtags and an endless Twitter feed of satire. We admit that Conway’s remarks are often laughable and an easy target for fast-break comedy.
The consequences of using “alternative facts,” however, are anything but comical.
We should not take this lightly. We have an obligation as free, patriotic Americans to counter Trump’s inauguration claims. We must do everything in our power to call these fabrications exactly what they are.
At best, it is a grim sign of things to come under President Trump. At worst, it is an Orwellian display of oppression akin to Soviet Russia, the Iranian Islamic Republic and many other totalitarian regimes.
Lying to the American people is not politics as usual. We deserve better from President Trump, and we demand better for those who serve him.
