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1984, Knocking at Your Door

Sales of the novel 1984 by George Orwell have surged in the last few days, ever since Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway started talking about “Alternative Facts”. 1984 is currently the fifth best-selling book on Amazon.com.

On Sunday, Conway defended the White House’s statements about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration by referring to it “alternative facts”. What are alternative facts? They are the new phrase used by the Trump administration to explain how White House press secretary Sean Spicer can insist that Trump’s swearing in was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period” when multiple sources (photos, subway rides, traffic counts) clearly show that it wasn’t even close.

Conway then came up with her own alternative facts, saying “There’s no way to really quantify crowds. We all know that.” Well, if that is true, then why is she insisting that Trump’s was the largest?

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7 Comments

  1. Max wrote:

    Alt-facts for the alt-right. Makes sense.

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 9:34 am | Permalink
  2. ebdoug wrote:

    this is his mental illness

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

    basically he is disabled.

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 10:48 am | Permalink
  3. Ongoing Headache wrote:

    Newt Gingrich- “Feelings are just as valid as facts”. It’s a new world out there.

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 11:07 am | Permalink
  4. Anonymous wrote:

    I think the alt-right is becoming the ctl-right.

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 11:11 am | Permalink
  5. JWHAT wrote:

    Too bad we can’t “ctrl-alt-del” them. Did it disturb anyone else how belligerent and insulting she was to Todd? I definitely got the feeling that now that he’s inaugurated they will be more combative and dismissive of journalists….SAD.

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 12:19 pm | Permalink
  6. Ralph wrote:

    “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?

    Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.”
    ― George Orwell, 1984

    Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
  7. redjon wrote:

    A better parallel may be Sinclair Lewis’s novel, “It Can’t Happen Here.”

    Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 3:37 pm | Permalink