The Nature of Alternative Facts

January 21, 2017 was the first full day of the Trump Presidency. Anyone paying attention should have been concerned on a number of fronts, but one thing, in particular, jumped out at me. It was a press conference, held by Trump Administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer. In it, Spicer inexplicably decided to take reality head on, while simultaneously announcing a war against journalism. One thing is for certain: the next four years are unlikely to be boring, even if they trend towards the horrifying nature of staring at a train wreck even when every part of your being wants to look away.

Spicer held this press conference, but didn't take any questions. There may have been many reasons for this, but I suspect the biggest reason is that he knew that he didn't have a leg to stand on, so he didn't want to get called out. Honestly, it was likely the best thing he could have done, because what he did in the interim was ridiculous by anyone's standards.  Let's take a look at some of Spicer's quotes, from the press conference, to see what the big stink is.

"Yesterday ... some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting."

This is a bold start, to say the least. Within the first five sentences of his initial press conference, the new White House Press Secretary is calling out members of the media for intentionally making stuff up. That's quite a charge to leverage, and I hope he was able to back it up. Let's check back in:

"One was a particular egregious example in which a reporter falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office."

So far, Spicer is one for one ... sort of. This was reported by Time Magazine's Zeke Miller, who shortly thereafter issued a correction of the initial report. I'll set aside what it says about this new Administration that something like this a) seems plausible, and b) wouldn't surprise anyone, and simply say that Miller should have taken the time to confirm this, prior to reporting it to the pool. Spicer went on to say that Miller's reporting was "irresponsible and reckless," which I suppose is true, but the strength of his words also tell you how afraid the Administration is of any press which appears to indicate they are being racist. I'll give Spicer this one. Let's see what else he's got:

"Secondly, photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual. This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past."

Well, one for two isn't bad, right Sean? Nearly ever aspect of this last paragraph has been proven to be patently false: Obama's 2nd inaugural was the first one with the floor coverings, and the Secret Service confirmed that nothing was different in this year's security set up regarding fencing and magnetometers, so that excuse doesn't fly either. But, wait, it gets better:

"Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. By the way, this applies to any attempts to try to count the number of protesters today in the same fashion."

There are two great things here, as far as I'm concerned. The first is a report that the Trump Administration effectively shut down the National Park Services' Twitter handle. What egregious offense did the NPS engage in, you might ask? Oh, you know, simply retweeting a shot of Obama's 2009 inauguration crowd up against Trump's inauguration crowd. Now the spin is on, saying they were worried they were hacked, that they shouldn't have retweeted the picture, and so on and so forth. Basically, the NPS simply retweeted a picture of their own grounds, and got in trouble for doing so because it didn't fit the narrative that the Trump Administration wanted. Silencing people for simply reporting as objective a fact as you can have. A picture. Not unlike this picture (Trump's inauguration is on the left, Obama's 2009 inauguration is on the right):

Photo from CBS

The second thing I'd like to point out from that quote is that Spicer is not just satisfied with invalidating any attempt to accurately track the number of people at the inauguration, he wants to have it both ways. That's why he mentions the protesters in DC (and, one would presume, around the globe). He is setting up a reality in which he (and, perhaps most tellingly, his boss ... I'll get to that in a second) can say how big and great and, yes, huge his turnout was, while simultaneously squashing any reports of other events which would make it look small by comparison. Of course, like a poker player on tilt, Spicer continued:

"We do know a few things, so let's go through the facts."

Hold on, I have to jump in and note that Mr. Spicer set up an argument that there was no way to report on the number of people, because, and I quote him directly "no one had numbers, because the National Park Services ... does not put any out." And then he's going to, you guessed it, start throwing out numbers. Enjoy:

"We know that from the platform where the President was sworn in, to 4th Street, it holds about 250,000 people. From 4th Street to the media tent is about another 220,000. And from the media tent to the Washington Monument, another 250,000 people. All of this space was full when the President took the Oath of Office."

Well, we have photographic evidence that all of the space wasn't full when the President took the Oath of Office. So not only is Mr. Spicer making up numbers, immediately after telling all of us that there are no numbers to be had, but then he is blatantly lying about something we have objective evidence about. But wait, there's more:

"We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe." 

Wait, what? We don't have any numbers and never will somehow just led to a definitive (note the use of the word "period" in his statement) declaration of this being the largest inaugural audience ever. Oh, and also, those numbers he just quoted are, just as you might guess, completely inaccurate, because Spicer quoted the full day D.C. Metro number for Trump's inauguration day, but then quotes the number of riders in 2013 only through 11am (for Obama's second inaugural). If we go through 11am the numbers are Trump 193,000 against 317,000 for Obama's second inaugural. If we go for the full day numbers it would be Trump 570,000 against 782,000 for Obama's second inaugural (and a whopping 1.1 million for Obama's first inaugural, which is a more apt comparison anyways).

Spicer goes on about other inaccuracies, and I could write about all of them, but this is already longer than I wanted. Ultimately Spicer lays this line out there:

"There's been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. And I'm here to tell you that it goes two ways. We're going to hold the press accountable, as well."

And now, my head spins and I get a little sick to my stomach. Free press, to help hold our leaders accountable, is a hallmark of this country and our way of life. It seems that Spicer thinks that by coming to the podium, giving one small bit of truth regarding the erroneous report that Dr. King's bust had been removed. and then blatantly lying and making stuff up, he is holding the press accountable. What he has done, instead, is indicate that this Administration will attempt to live in a post-factual world. That can't be much of a surprise, as that is all Donald Trump did throughout his campaign to win the Presidency. But it has to be disheartening to the few who were holding out hope that he might pivot towards reality.

The most shocking thing of all this (although, again, it can't be surprising), is that Trump is this obsessed with meaningless things. He is President, barring his death or removal from office, for four years, at least. If only half of the people who did show up for his inauguration had showed up, who cares? This isn't a reality TV show, nor a popularity contest. The man is now the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, and he spent much of his first 48 hours in office fixated on how to make the number of people who attended his inauguration, and who watched it, seem bigger than it actually was. Numbers are objective. By any objective measure his inauguration was less attended and watched than many before it. There were far fewer people in town for his inauguration than were in town for the Women's March the day after. These are facts. This shouldn't be a surprise, because this administration comes to office as the most unpopular in modern times, and with the weakest mandate ever. He lost the election by over three million votes. He won the Electoral College, so he earned the office in that way, but he does not have any mandate to speak of. What Trump needs to figure out, and fast, is that his legacy, and the well being of our country, will depend on his actions, not the "ratings," however he perceives them.

Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic that will be the case. On Sunday Kellyanne Conway, Trump's counselor, told NBC's Meet the Press moderator, Chuck Todd, that what Spicer did wasn't lie. What he did, instead, was present "alternative facts." Todd, rightly, pointed out that alternative facts are falsehoods. Needless to say, we need the press now more than ever, especially if the Trump Administration's standard operating procedure is going to be to make stuff up as it suits them. And especially because the Alt-Right echo chamber will be there to amplify whatever they make up to people who don't have the desire or ability to think critically on their own.