In the first month of the Donald Trump administration, the term “alternative facts” came into being. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway used the term to describe Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement that the size of the crowd attending Trump’s inauguration was the biggest in the history of the world.
In Conway’s opinion, Spicer’s assessment should not be dismissed outright because it was an “alternative fact.”
In other words, the lie should be accepted as a “dimension” of the truth because it conforms to the president’s narrative that everything he does must be portrayed as unparalleled.
Throughout Trump’s tenure there have been those willing to keep up the charade, whether it be relations with Russia or the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The practice has served to emasculate the Republican Party to the point its sole purpose is to cater to the whims of one person.
Which is why today, there are those indulging the president’s fantasy that he did not lose re-election despite abundant proof to the contrary.
To make it clear, Joe Biden secured 306 of the Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. Of the popular vote, Biden bested Trump by more than 7 million.
Never in the country’s history has a president acted in such a manner. That there are those — including now-Sen. Roger Marshall of Great Bend — willing to aid and abet the president’s effort to overturn the election results is a national horror.
On Saturday, Marshall signed on with 11 other Republican Senators to object to Wednesday’s certification of the Electoral College vote, the last procedural step to confirming Biden as president-elect.
SEN. TED CRUZ of Texas leads the cabal, with the argument that “the people” are still not satisfied that charges of voting irregularities have been sufficiently plumbed.
This is after recounts in six states — some more than once — and more than 60 lawsuits that have all affirmed the 2020 President al Election was fair and secure.
Not enough, they say, and on Wednesday will demand that Congress appoint a commission to run a 10-day “audit” of the states whose results have been disputed, in addition to those states calling special sessions to review, and if necessary, certify new results.
TRUMP’S MASTERY of “alternative facts” is what keeps the cauldron churning.
On Saturday he harangued Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an hour-long phone call pressuring that he “recalculate” the returns so that they fall in his favor.
In the audio clip of the phone call Trump becomes unhinged, saying he won the Georgia election “by hundreds of thousands of votes,” and accused state election officials of shredding the evidence and tampering with the voting machines.
The effect of Trump’s non-stop allegations is that, even though false, they hit their mark. Say it enough times, and it becomes so. Psychologists call this the “illusion of truth” effect.
