Kellyanne Conway has engaged in many appearances on television to explain the words of Donald Trump. Now she gets to explain even his press secretary. Conway has proved herself to be nimble at dancing around questions that are too awkward. A few days ago, when asked directly about what most people would call a “lie,” although others might call it a “falsehood” or a “prevarication,” Conway said that there are “alternative facts.”
Mercedes Schneider tries to explain it here.
“Alternative facts” means something, but I am not sure. Maybe it means that if you tell a lie, you can twist the words to sound almost true. Well, maybe not true, but something that fervent believers will assume to be true even if it is completely false.
Maybe it means that if you don’t want something to be true, then it is not true.
Maybe Trump is in an alternative universe, and I will wake up tomorrow and discover that the 2016 election was a nightmare and he doesn’t exist. In my alternative universe, Hillary Clinton won. She appointed Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and selected experienced, well-qualified people to every Cabinet post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I really appreciate your insights and posts on this alternate reality we have fallen into.
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🙂
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“Alternative facts” is a standard political weapon. “No, I did not have sex with that woman” is an “Alternative fact.”
“No, there was never any classified information on my server” also is an Alternative fact.”
It pains me to have to say this, but it seems trump has mastered the “Alternative facts” way of communication, even with an overabundance of evidence that the “Alternative facts” are incorrect – or, in everyday speech, made up, fabricated, imaginary, lies – take your pick…
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Rudy, there you go again. “Alternative facts” are lies. We have had more lies from Trump in his six days as president than we had in 8 years of Clinton as president.
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Did you read the end of my statement???
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Are hyperboles a form of “alternative facts” or can they considered to be lies and prevarications?
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I think what Conway meant to convey by “alternative facts” was “another side to the story.” The phrase she chose was ill-considered. If Conway hadn’t been the one who said it, and if she hadn’t used the phrase to defend such a bald-faced lie, it probably wouldn’t seem nearly as sinister.
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I’ll play your game. What’s the other side of the story of 2+2=4? Or the sky is blue on a cloudless day? Or if billions of people see the same thing and millions argue what they saw didn’t happen?
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My point is simply that I think Conway intended the phrase to convey “another side to the story,” or “additional facts that were previously omitted.”
I don’t think she was trying to convey “things that would be considered facts in an alternative universe” or “complete lies that the President decrees shall henceforth be considered facts.” If that’s what she was trying to convey, than we should be applauding her for trying to telling it like it is.
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FLERP,
You are generous. She was asked about Trump’s claim that the crowd at his inauguration was bigger than the one in 2009 for Obama. No one but Trump thought it was. She said that she and the administration have “alternative facts,” and Chuck Todd of NBC, the soul of civility, said that “alternative facts” were lies. 2+2=4. There is not another side to the story.
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To be clear, I’m not saying there is another side to the story. I’m just suggesting that that’s what she was trying to say. A fine distinction, perhaps.
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FLERP,
Reuters and the National Park Service posted photographs of the crowds taken from exactly the same spot in 2009 and 2016. There were also photographs of the parade route, with few people watching the new president pass by. I don’t think Trump or Kellyanne had a factual rebuttal to the photographs, just an assertion.
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Agree.
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I think there might be a job for you in White House communications as a rhetorical yoga instructor. You do a much better job of post facto rationalizing than either Sean or Kellyanne.
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Great, even people like FLERP! with a demonstrable history of being definitively anti-Trump (and pro-Hillary!) get accused of working for Trump. Business as usual around here.
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Sad, Dienne. You are better than that.
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No, Diane, you and GregB are better than that. At least, you used to be. FLERP! is on record being very pro-Hillary and anti-Trump, yet you allow comments about how he should go work for Trump, simply because he’s trying to explain what Conway might have meant and which would be accepted without so much as a bat of an eye if a Democrat had said it. That’s what’s sad.
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Dienne,
I looked to find a comment in which FLERP was accused of being a Trump troll. I couldn’t find it.
Would you point it out to me?
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Kellyanne was defending a flat-out lie. No one but Trump and his group thinks that the crowd at his inauguration was the biggest in history. Ever. Period. That is called an “alternative fact.”
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Dienne says: “. . . simply because he’s trying to explain what Conway might have meant and which would be accepted without so much as a bat of an eye if a Democrat had said it.”
Are you kidding me? Have you been asleep for eight years? It didn’t matter WHAT a democrat or Obama said for eight long years–if it wasn’t twisted out of recognizable shape, it was lam-blasted–REGARDLESS.
At some point you just have to say: no, my eyes are not lying to me.
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I was commenting on FLERP!’s observations on this particular topic. I did not accuse him/her or being pro-Trump, just that he/she did a remarkable job of semantic gymnastics to give Kellyanne the benefit of a doubt. I am not able to do so. Perhaps time will prove me wrong and FLERP! correct.
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Dienne, I can’t remember the precise post, but I once commented on FLERP!’s explanation on a constitutional issue and how it made me long to be a government teacher so that I could have used it in class. I genuinely respect FLERP!’s reasoning, but I can’t agree with this particular observation. Doesn’t mean I call FLERP’s motives into question.
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I’ll give it one more try. I’m suggesting that Conway was attempting to present a flat-out lie as simply “another side to the story.” In doing so, she used the phrase “alternative facts.” The phrase is so Orwellian that it had the effect of highlighting the lie she was trying it present as fact. That effect was unintended — her intention was to present the lie as fact successfully.
By now, I think it’s clear that this is not an important enough point to meet further typing by anyone.
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Conway is the mouthpiece for a vicious lying unhinged demagogue. It’s inevitable that the slime oozing from Trump wipes off on his hired stooges and toadies.
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Diane offered several ” maybe meanings.” I think this is the best.
“Something that fervent believers will assume to be true even if it is completely false.”
Unexamined beliefs are the easiest for people to sustain and arguably dangerous if you have been delgated with the responsiblity of governing the US directly as an elected official, or indirectly by voting for those who will govern.
Trump’s spokesperson and counselor, Kellyanne Conway, tried to make it OK to cite “alt-facts” on behalf of the President. Did she learn to invent alt-acts while earning a law degree from Georgetown University? I doubt it. She is doing now doing some serious impression management with the media. The gist of this: “I am just a mom trying to make a living, while trying to find some good schools in the DC area for my four children.”
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Now it seems there are at least two versions of this supposedly new form of lies–“alt-facts” and/or “alternative facts”. Do those two newly coined misnomers mean the same thing?
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Alt-facts are lies, alternative facts are falsehoods. Got it 🙂 ?
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There was an interesting discussion of alt-facts on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show on MSNBC a few nights ago. One guest–David Korn of Mother Jones— said there are lies, falsehoods, and delusions. He thinks that Trump is delusional. Kellyanne, on the other hand, is not delusional. She lies on behalf of her delusional boss.
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In other words bullshit and horseshit, eh!
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Now you’re engaging in false equivalence, Duane!
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Kellyanne is a spin doctor so she will represent the best interests of her client. Lying and twisting information is part of the job.
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These are some new Trump hires:
“KIPP Director and founding member of MarylandCAN at WH, Partner at the EdTech Fund at ED, plus longtime career civil servant Jim Manning.”
So charter director, ed reform lobbying group and one former Bush Administration person.
Will they hire a single person from public schools? Will they really set policy for all US public schools and exclude people from public schools?
Does there need to be an administrative rule or something? X number of public school students get X number of representatives in DC?
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Chiara,
Look at the up side of these appointments. As reformersters join the Trump administration, it shows their true colors. They lose their claim to be warriors for civil rights, which was never true.
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A bit of reflection: From watching TV the last two days, it seems to me that the people in Congress have come right up against, but are not actually naming a “troubling” psychological condition. He’s our acknowledged president; and yet he still cannot stand it that Hilary got more votes than he did.
As analogy, a generality can be drawn: The implications of, for instance, “more votes,” are enormous when an entire life has been centered around denying even the possibility of such assaults on a person’s sense of self and fragile ego. And so a fake-news site wrote that there were millions of fraudulent votes–then it MUST BE!–not because there is multi-source evidence for it, but because this person wants it to be the case.
I speak generally here: But here’s where the thinking goes off-course for many who automatically believe conspiracy theories–and where critical thinking (issuing in good judgment) goes missing: if I cannot prove that IT’S NOT the case, and if I WANT it to be the case, then it must be that IT IS the case. Similarly, if I want it NOT to be the case, and “they” cannot prove that it IS the case, then it must NOT be the case. In either case, the derailed thinking issues in blind belief; and judgment (yes/no) follows wants or not-wants (desires and/or fears) rather than critically-gathered evidence or reasonable belief (rather than blind belief).
Alice’s world: LYING or DELUSION: The above is lying to myself, and so is more self-delusion than it is lying, until it gets out to others. But the interior life of self-delusion sounds like this: I want it so badly that I actually create a false reality for myself to think and live in and I fight-like-hell to keep out even the fringes of truth. And so I hate, deride and put-down, or even kill the messengers of it.
But IF lying means to DELIBERATELY avoid or erase the truth and DELIBERATELY replace it with falsity for whatever purpose, then you are looking at a sane person but commonly with a serious moral and spiritual problem driven often by plain-old arrogance and hubris, and peppered with any bias du jour. Lying is not necessarily self-delusional (aka insanity). We all lie, and sometimes we do so with authentic purpose. And even in a common understanding of truth-telling and lying, lying implies no delusion but rather the self-knowledge: THAT it is a lie, even a plausible lie, that I am telling. Truth and our critical judgment of it are pretty solidly human that way. But I think that in our own political environment, we are probably not seeing sane lies as much as the result of delusional thinking that’s gotten a bit too big for itself, and, still, will not listen. There are other kinds of walls to consider.
And so in that alternate universe where our taxes go, our money will be thrown down our particular rabbit hole in this part of the world in order to “prove” the array of results of particular delusional thinking or at least to make that delusion, those blind (rather than reasonable) beliefs, and those bad judgments more palatable. I only pray that we and our Constitution can survive.
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All Trump hires may find that the old saying You Reap What You Sow is actually true. Trump has been so viciously mean in his denigration of not only “the press” but of specifically named reporters that there will likely be an ever attenuating willingness on the part of journalists to forgive ANY blunders.
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You heap what you snow might be more apt.
Break out the shovels.
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The many world’s hypothesis in physics assumes that the universe is incessantly branching into parallel universes. It also assumes that once the branching occurs, the branches have no way of communicating with one another.
The “many minds” version of many world’s assumes that we create our own universe so maybe we can just pinch off our own universe from the one Kellyanne is in.
Problem solved.
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Like Trump, Kellyanne Conway seems to have a personality disorder of some sort. She wears her arrogance like a badge of honor, and condescends to the press corps in a particularly ugly way. Politically, she reminds me of some of the Soviet political hacks I studied in my undergraduate course of Eurasian Studies. At some point, I hope she becomes a liability to this administration, but that would mean that Trump would be in similar trouble with his supporters–a distinct possibility.
Otherwise, as SomeDAM Poet says, maybe we can just tie off our section of the universe.
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There’s a rumor reported on the news of a power struggle between Jared Kushner and Kellyanne. Jared always wins.
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“Jared always wins.”
Are you sure? How does anybody have a chance? A continuously talking and smiling woman who never seem to lose her temper or stride? Great, normally tough reporters let her get away with her stuff. Fast talking works its magic.
Here is Bill Maher. He asks tough questions, but when she basically ignores the questions, and quickly starts talking about something else, he lets her off the hook. He keeps repeating “you are good, very good at this”.
Charley Rose also backs down, though he tries a bit harder. Here
You can insist on getting a nonbs answer without bullying.
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Kellyanne is good at what she does, but Jared is the son-in-law.
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It could be tough for Trump to let her go: she has stories to tell and I bet she is well loved by Trumpists and many others who admire her skill in quick, continuous talking.
Can the culture of admiring this meaningless skill be changed?
We are annoyed by these people in our private lives (just imagine a dinner with Conway), so then why are people glued to their TVs when Conway and similar compulsive talkers start pouring their data and superficial opinion at them?
After all, the content is very little, and it would be easy for Mercedes to quantify the actual content/word count ratio in Conway’s speeches.
I think, if Conway slowed down just a bit, people would fall asleep in no time, so the only entertainment value is really the fast pace. Fast paced MTV videos come to mind
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Apparently, Trump competing views, ro even competition, in his inner circles. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/politics/trump-priebus-bannon-conway-kushner/index.html
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Repaired response: Apparently, Trump likes competing views, or even competition, in his inner circles. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/politics/trump-priebus-bannon-conway-kushner/index.html
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Oh? I don’t know what to make of him. I subscribed to the New York Observer briefly a number of years ago. In the end, I called the paper’s office and cancelled it, telling my interlocutor that I “wasn’t really part of your publication’s demographic.” I wouldn’t mind seeing her go as she’s kind of–to risk hyperbole–the Josef Goebbels of Trump’s administration, though in truth she shares that job with Steve Bannon, who I suspect wrote the inaugural address.
And Diane? Thanks for all you do here…..
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I have a series at Oped News where I am a trusted voice, in which I post all the articles and voices that tell us LIES and offer propaganda. Most of it comes from Diane’s blog, where she offers us a view of the mendacity afoot on the ‘reform ‘stage.
MY Series: “lies & propaganda:: the rant” http://www.opednews.com/Series/lies–propaganda–the-ra-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-229.html I also wrote a comment at Oped News, called Mendacity long before the campaign began, where i said:
We need to end this AGE OF MENDACITY where people plea that “everyone was doing it” (business as usual)!
THIS WAS the “reason’ that the guys at Libor and Standard and Poors,’ gave. They figured it was OK to sell junk to our people. Their values. After all — they lied, got away with it, and never went to jail! In fact the CEOs were rewarded for their mendacity, walking away with millions, while their companies settled and paid a pittance for penance.
And the media sold this to the people. Look, Bernie and I graduated HS together. It does not surprise me that he recognizes the same things that I doWe were there when things were different… not perfect… but without tv and thus without the incessant noise and demands on our attention and our values! That ubiquitous screen, which sells ON HUGE SCREENS, THEIR VERSIONS OF THINGS… IN HD was ABSENT!
Many of us, with a decent and free education (Bernie and I graduated in 1959) had some prior knowledge with which to analyze what we heard on the radio. And, we had time to think critically. We heard Nixon and listened to the news. Today, people can barely have time to relax; many hold down 2 jobs and have to meet the needs of kids.
I have written for years about what I KNOW — how studies show that fast images, and sound-bites changed the brain or our citizenry. Images enter the brain on a different neurological path than do words. Sustained attention is difficult for many. Bits of information, and loads of misinformation at blistering speeds compete in a 24/7 static field.
Humans simply tune out the noise, and this is what the oligarchs need to happen — ALL THOSE TALKING HEADS EMITTING LIES… and the studies show how maths and lies become TRUTHS with re-telling.
I am not saying that it is merely television lies are what is killing democracy.
I am saying that LYING by those when trust to ‘promote the common welfare,’ is INTOLERABLE because it is DESTRUCTIVE.
That is why dictators ultimately destroy their states, and why our founding fathers created the document whiter legislature has made unrecognizable to bernie and I, and anyone who knows what it actually says and what it MEANS for a democracy to EXIST!!
The reason that lies are hurtful is easy to comprehend. In the real world, what you DON’T KNOW MAY KILL YOU, and thus, built into the human genome is the desire for FACTS… well, until the advent of television and that screen… that window onto the world… not the real one, but the one that the puppet-masters of media want you to believe. Like a world where a bully should have THAT PARTICULAR finger –THE ONE that pushes that RED button.
OY! This was before TRUMP SHOWED US THE TRUE FACE OF THE LIAR!
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Kellyanne makes is so easy to hate, doesn’t she? Almost as much Ann Coulter. Or more. Time will tell.
Cast your vote here on the single most important issue facing us http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/20/kellyanne-conway-inauguration-outfit-love-it-or-hate-it/
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Thanks for making me aware of Tom Walker/Jonathan Pie! Love everything I’ve seen so far.
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Keith’s take on this discussion, posted today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxd61lQJyPU
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I just ran across this very timely research:
“Psychological ‘Vaccine’ Could Help Immunize Against Fake News”
https://psychcentral.com/news/2017/01/22/psychological-vaccine-could-help-immunize-against-fake-news/115419.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=hot-topics
A year ago, I was being constantly inundated with pro-Trump propaganda from Trump followers, all of whom who struck me as being extremely odd ducks, including one of his most combative supporters, and if I’d have seen this research then, I probably would have been like, WTF? Now I’m all, “Whoda Thunk It?”
I don’t know if I really believe that these strange people who are totally enamored with Trump could ever be immunized and then able to recognize the forest for the trees though. But, at least today, I know I’m not the only one contending with such an abundance of lies coming from sooo many really weird supporters of Trump… (Maybe others have had different experiences, but honestly, I have yet to meet even one of Trump’s followers who is any closer to normal than he is!)
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Reteach 4 America: Thanks for the article–I think another way to say that is that the “inoculation” kind of wakes up critical consciousness which previously was asleep. We are so accustomed to (blindly) believing what people say and what we read. (It’s too bad we cannot trust everyone, but we cannot.) So the “inoculation” breaks into the extreme polemics of “BLINDLY BELIEVE ALL or BLINDLY DISBELIEVE ALL.” So that critical thoughtfulness is sparked where we look for further evidence before passing judgment (or we just don’t pass judgment yet). And/or we find our way towards reasonable belief.
But here’s the most scary part of the article: “The researchers also analyzed the results in terms of political parties. Before inoculation, the fake negated the factual for both Democrats and Independents. For Republicans, the fake actually overrode the facts by nine percentage points. <–now THAT’s scary.
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I think Kellyanne’s over her head. She starts off defensive (and there’s a lot to be defensive about) and has nowhere else to go but down from there.
Regarding the definition of “Alternative Facts”:
I’m glad she said it as it spotlights her arrogance and ignorance.
But what I think (THINK) she meant is this:
An “alternate fact” is ANOTHER “fact” other than the one that’s being focused on in the interview that she says we should consider.
In other words: it’s an evasion tactic. A way to deflect attention away from an uncomfortable question:
“Ok…you think the president is lying about the numbers at his inauguration? Well, consider this “alternative fact”: a reporter lied about him removing Martin Luther King’s bust from the Oval Office. Oh! And the education system is a disaster. OH! And millions are living in poverty! OH! And here’s another “alternative fact” to consider:….”
She’s over her head and is being asked to defend the indefensible. Like a 5th grader being asked to defend Bush/Cheney’s rationale for the invasion of Iraq. So she deflects the viewers attention by bringing up other issues.
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gitapik: Yes–KellyAnn “deflects,” and usually the new subject is something that the questioner will feel defensive about, and so goes on to defend themselves. It’s an old method of argumentation (fallacy) and it works unless the questioner is aware. Change the subject, put the other person on the defensive.
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Fun stuff about favorite lady in uniform
CONWAY, on video clip:
We hear from the Trump campaign, rules … the rules change, it’s not fair, the system’s rigged, the system’s corrupt. He can whine and complain all he wants that he didn’t know the rules.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-rigged_us_580ce5d2e4b02444efa3ec81
Sry, if repost here.
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Here, Conway claims, the EPA’s job is to protect us from the environment. It’s true.
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Kellyanne Conway is the fiction-come-to-life version of Squealer from Orwell’s Animal Farm. Tell me I’m wrong!
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“Kellyanne Conway has engaged in many appearances on television to explain the words of Donald Trump. ”
I cannot recall Conway explaining “America first” which very much resembles “Deutschland über alles”. Especially in repeated form, as Trump said it “America first, America first”
Here’s a punk version of the observation
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I meant this punk version from almost a year ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQLb2cG1Di8
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“Alternative facts” are fiction. “Period” — i.e., to use Sean Spicer’s pre-emptive method of silencing anyone who would (accurately) define the fiction that Trump and his camp put out as lies and falsehoods.
In the future, look for similar tactics to suppress the truth from Trump and his cronies. That’s because the bully pulpit is center stage with the mic, so they will be the ones who call on “reporters” from tabloids, like Murdoch’s NY Post, instead of investigative journalists, and they will try to end discussions at their will
However, as long as the free press holds the camera, journalists can and should actively and consistently take back their power from these propaganda artists.
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