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Jack Mallory
As a follow up to Joan's comments on the felonious falsifier's press conference, let us celebrate the 8 years since we first heard his administration's take on the reality of reality.
On January 22, 2017, Kellyanne Conway, a Trump aide, introduced the world to the Trumpian concept of "Alternative Facts" in an attempt to justify grotesquely false claims about the attendance at Trump's inauguration.
I posted this to FaceBook on January 24, 2017:
"My hat is off to the new administration. Honestly.
'"Alternative Facts'--a stroke of Orwellian genius. Not lies, untruths, mistakes, or even errors; but simply alternative facts, seemingly just as respectable as the facts to which they are the alternative. The earth as the center of the solar system is simply an alternative fact to a heliocentric solar system. Not a gross misperception of reality, but an alternative reality.
"I've always admired, if that's the word, the term 'collateral damage.' A stroke of propaganda genius, camouflaging dead and wounded non-combatants with a screen of verbiage. But it's so limited in application. 'Alternative facts' is a concept useful anywhere, in any context. Want to claim that your crowd (or whatever) is bigger than the evidence suggests? Create some data, even though they're contradicted by evidence. Want to justify a battering in the popular vote? Come up with 3-5 million illegal voters, regardless of the contradictory evidence.
"The Ministry of Truth would be proud of Trump and his spokespeople. Reality is what he says it is, facts be damned.
Above the White House Press office will soon be emblazoned the verities of the new administration, 'WAR IS PEACE,' 'FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,' 'IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.' Lessons in Newspeak will be mandatory in American schools."
And so it was, for four years. Some poor bastards at the WaPo were tasked with keeping track of the cumulative carnage: 30,573 torturings of the truth, false or misleading statements, 21 erroneous claims a day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
Perhaps Nori is right, all politicians lie. But few, or none other than our Felon, can claim a record of deceit like this. And I fear we have four more years of the same ahead of us. We can only hope that a new crew of mendacity monitors has been subbed in at the Post, for their sake.
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After posting the above, I found this news. Rather than discomfort anyone with the facts of historic discrimination, we'll just eradicate the facts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training. https://apnews.com/article/air-force-dei-tuskegee-women-wwii-pilots-ecdeac68dc7696535d093c7690ab73bc#
I suppose my mom's place in helping break Japanese code during WWII will never be taught either.
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