Alternative Facts: The Truth Just Got Spicier

Owen Roy, Managing Editor

Recently, America got its first look at White House Press Secretary and future head of the Ministry of Truth, Sean Spicer. Unlike the majority of Trump’s spokespeople, who are incredibly talented at contorting quotes and distorting arguments to put their president in a positive light, Spicer has already made a name for himself by repeatedly making the rookie mistake of leaning on numbers and blanket statements, nearly all of which can be objectively disproved.

His first gaff involved attacking the media on their “false coverage” of the President’s inauguration, as well as the following Women’s March on Washington. Actual statistics and evidence, including both Metro ridership and pictures, show that both the march and the 2013 inauguration had several times greater number of attendees than the recent inauguration. However, Spicer simultaneously claimed that numbers could not be used and that Trump’s inauguration had the “largest audience” ever. “Period”. He even asserted that photos taken at similar points in each event were somehow misleading and biased.

This blatant lying required Trump to send in his get out of jail free card, chronic perjurer Kellyanne Conway. But even she could not successfully defend Spicer’s comments. Instead she decided to coin a new synonym for lying on the spot. The phrase “alternative facts” has since been used repeatedly to discredit many arguments from the Trump camp.

Since then, Spicer has continued with his lying on a number of different topics. He has defended Donald Trump’s statement of the Holocaust, which omitted any specific reference to Jews or anti-Semitism, arguing that it was praised “by and large” because other groups of people were also killed. The problem with these statements is that both the Anti-Defammation League and Republican Jewish Coalition denounced this edit. Furthermore, the Holocaust refers specifically to the mass genocide of Jews, and while many gays, gypsies, and disabled people were killed, removing Jews from mentions of the Holocaust is not inclusionary, it is censorship.

Despite Trump’s constant criticism of “fake news,” Spicer was quick to jump on the recent Quebec mosque shooting, asserting that it justifies the travel ban put into place by the recent executive order. Again the only problem with this is that it is not only misleading, but the opposite of true. Instead of the Moroccan Muslim the media immediately pointed their finger at, the shooter turned out to be a white, French Canadian, who in fact was on record as a Trump supporter. Not only did the shooting not justify the ban, it could possibly have been caused by it.

When asked about Trump’s claims of voter fraud, Spicer pulled of an incredible double gaff, merging and misinterpreting two separate statistics to form one fresh “alternative fact.” Spicer stated that there was a Pew study in 2008 that showed that 14 percent of people who voted were not citizens. The Pew study mentioned not only came out in 2012, but it is actually about a completely different voter issue, helping improve registration. The other half of this study is from Old Dominion University, and their actual percentage was 6, not 14. Furthermore, this study has been widely criticized for its poor methods.

One might wonder how to deal with a White House that has no problem lying to people. Spicer is just one of several who are ready to not just bend the truth, but to simply throw words together to suit their agenda. This is not just an issue for liberals and democrats, conservatives should also be extremely worried about the methods of our Commander in Chief and his cronies. As consumers of news and media, we must be more critical and vigilant than ever before. Otherwise we might end up in “alternative housing,” earning “alternative wages,” and having “alternative rights.”