A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading George Orwell’s “1984.” So, when I was watching last Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” it surprised me that I encountered “doublethink” from Kellyanne Conway rather than from a character in a despotic, dystopian regime. For those unfamiliar with Orwell, doublethink is the act of accepting two contradictory beliefs as truth. An example would be thinking that the sky is only blue and that the sky is only purple. However, I would have to admit that Conway demonstrated doublethink much more eloquently than I just did.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, claimed “that was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.” I must say, the “period” remark at the end really quelled my fears that Spicer wasn’t being truthful. Fortunately, I came across a Politifact article that rated that claim not as false but as “Pants on Fire.” I was shocked (not really).
Chuck Todd, on “Meet the Press,” questioned Conway about this claim. She responded, “you’re saying it’s a falsehood … our press secretary gave alternative facts.”
“Wait a minute, alternative facts? Alternative facts? Four of the five facts he uttered, the one he got right was Zeke Miller. Four of the five facts he uttered were just not true. Look, alternative facts are not facts — they’re falsehoods,” Todd replied.
Conway essentially argued that the press is correct in saying that the inauguration crowd wasn’t the biggest, but Spicer is correct in his assertion as well. Don’t worry if you have trouble following.
Merriam-Webster even tweeted, in response to a spike in searches for “fact,” that “a fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality.” I learned one vital thing from that tweet: Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account is much needed in the new age of doublethink.
That wasn’t even the only problem from Conway’s “interview,” if you could even call it that. Many times, Conway completely avoided Todd’s direct questions. It was as if Conway was playing herself in a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
What Conway continues to say is irrelevant because she is changing the subject, uttering falsehoods on national television and acting like the swamp monster Donald Trump purportedly wants to eliminate. Television show hosts and journalists should take a hardline approach with politicians on all sides of the aisle. That doesn’t mean continuing to ask the same question, but ending interviews when the interviewee is clearly changing the subject or is lying. This should apply to every politician, political commentator or political strategist.
Trump and his political “gang” are untrustworthy. They don’t deserve to be trusted. So, why allow them to make a five-minute television segment about promoting their agenda and attacking opponents instead of about substantive, pressing issues?
Let’s not forget that Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as 2016’s international word of the year.
Fareed Zakaria, on his CNN show and in the Washington Post, pointedly described Trump’s personality. “Trump is many things, some of them dark and dangerous, but at his core, he is a B.S. artist,” Zakaria said. Zakaria then cited Harry Frankfurt, an eminent moral philosopher and former professor at Princeton University.
“Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point,” Frankfurt wrote in an essay titled “On Bullshit.” “In order to invent a lie at all, [the teller of a lie] must think he knows what is true.”
Trump clearly is a nonsense artist and/or is a narcissist solely based on the following demonstrably false belief.
“[Trump] continues to maintain that belief [that millions of people voted illegally] based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him,” Spicer said on Tuesday.
In the despotic, dystopian regime of 1984 Orwell powerfully writes, “in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” I’m afraid Trump leads America closer to that kind of country.
