Is This An Alternative Fact

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Is This An Alternative Fact? The use Trump and his team have made of the phrase ‘alternative facts’ has rapidly pushed the phrase into popular usage. The trouble is that it is often being directed at things that are not, and never were intended to be seen as ‘facts’ in the first place. The phrase originates in its current form from the Trump camp efforts to dumb down the actual fact that the number of live on scene spectators to Trump’s inauguration was very low compared to the crowd turn outs for other incoming presidents, especially Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama. Though film footage and media photos show clearly that there were vast gaps and empty spaces in Trump’s crowd compared to high people congestion in such areas when Obama was sworn in to the White House, Trump’s team declare over and over that Trump had more supporters. They claim that the footage, photos and eye-witness accounts are wrong or doctored to give a false view. They want to present the established objective truth itself as somehow inaccurate or conspirational. They call it counter-factual and alternative factual. Of course, the real counter-facts are the ones they hope to get their supporters to believe. The problem is that the phrase relating to facts, evidence and proofs is often being applied to opinions, speculations and non-factual thoughts. If I said the Battle of Hastings took place in 1079 that would simply be seen as inaccurate. It would only be if I was to start claiming that all the evidence that it happened in 1066 was wrong to maintain my flimsy case for 1079 that I would be trying to dismiss the actual facts as counter-facts. A variation on this is ‘fake news’, the notion that a news report is so full of inaccuracies and / or alternative facts as to be total fiction presented as propaganda – the phrase again gets used by the oppositions on both sides of a story dismissing the other side’s case as fake until readers, viewers and listeners don’t know what to believe and gut instinct opinion decides them in favour of one view over the other. Virtually anyone arguing a radical, contentious claim, be it fact, opinion, hypothesis, theory or vague off the cuff notion, risks someone leaping up yelling fake news even if it isn’t. This is how witch hunt hysteria starts. It is extremely dangerous. A big problem now is that the label ‘counter-fact’ is being thrown at any political thoughts the commentators disagree with or dislike. It is used as a casual dismissive label in the same way as poor poetry was often written off with the label of doggerel. It basically says, this is rubbish, give it no further attention. To say someone is being counter-factual is actually making out they are wilfully lying rather than just being incorrect and inaccurate or expressing a contrary view on something not factual. A single error in a long argument risks getting the entire presentation discredited as counter-fact even if the rest is flawless. The statement that abortion is wrong is no more factual or counter-factual than its counter-claim that a woman has the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. Much of the debate between both for and against is emotive, and opinion. Facts or counter-facts enter in if claims are made that can be verified, or which draw reference to known testable aspects of biology, law, history and pregnancy among other things. Similarly with Trump’s political and media captured private behaviour. Many people get quite heated just by the raising of Trump’s name and others see intrusion into his domestic life as off-limits. Clearly his big political decisions such as his retreat from Obamacare and signed calls by Trump to build the wall around Mexico are more important than how well he gets on with his family. However, with a major area of concern being his overall negative stance on women, misogynistic comments and allegations of abuse by women he has been close to is making people look closely at footage of Trump involving women. The two closest women to him are his daughter Ivanka and his second wife, the First Lady Melania. Therefore it is no surprise that commentators look at footage of the two key ladies flinching from Trump or looking uncomfortable in his presence will spark emotion, thoughts, reaction, etc. Quite a few Youtubes are surfacing interpreting information that could be seen to indicate that Trump is sexually molesting his daughter and physically or mentally bullying his wife. Much of this speculation is just that, speculation, based on the way the viewer / film makers interpret every facial expression and look exchanged between the parties. The enclosed Youtube presents itself as ‘proof’ that Trump is abusing his wife. It shows her at various times looking unhappy, detached, uncomfortable, putting brave smiling face on with Trump, looking away in more sombre mood when he is not looking, etc. The assertion that it is ‘proof’ is embarrassingly misleading as it offers speculation and opinion. However, it is an interesting, well edited video, though over-using atmospheric music to underscore its case. I liked the video enough to share it with little comment from me on a few forums and posted the link to friends. It was my friends who quickly lambasted me for posting what they see as counter-Trump fake news, in some ways treating it as a part of our descent into a world of opinion peddled as news. The video is not news at all. It simply scours existing Trump related material to pick from to make an argument the film maker wants to present. Though it has an anti-trump stance anti-Trump activists rightly ask if it is making a valid case as the last thing they (we) need is someone using the very dirty tricks tactics some pro-Trumpers resort to but again, blanket dismissal of anything remotely flawed as fake news and alternate facts is as dangerous as actual alternate facts. Those so keen to dismiss the video listed below as if it was a professionally produced piece of conspirational propaganda fail to see the one clear fact there is about it – the video was knocked together by a 16 year old boy in Birmingham. (which Birmingham is unclear). Many of its points and opinions still raise valid concerns. Arthur Chappell