"Alternative facts" offer something that a lot of Americans will gladly accept: respite from the truth. There has been a lot of denial of truth recently---including the reality of global warming, the loss of jobs due to automation, and the competency of President Obama---and fighting against those truths is increasingly inconvenient. But now there is no need to worry about it. Instead of fighting between what you want to believe and what you suspect to be true, Americans can choose to accept what they're told, and leave the struggle between the reality that is, and the alternative reality they want, to people who have no scruples regarding that conflict.
An additional worrying thing to come from this is Conway's statement, "Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secretary and our president. That's not your job," insinuating that the media's "job" is to present the message that the Trump administration wants. There were also veiled threats to CNN of punishment for calling out the nascent administration on its lies.
Lying about crowd size probably doesn't matter, but the administration---and media too, either unwittingly or complicitly---can systematically focus on trivialities to divert attention away from atrocities. The only atrocity so far that I'm aware of is Trump's executive order "to waive and delay Obamacare fees and regulation." They may be simply laying the groundwork to be mired in controversy so that no one pays attention to things like new wars.
Trump Loves War
While campaigning, Trump said, "I love war, in a certain way. But only when we win. By the way, when was the last time we won a war?" (This footage is from a campaign rally. #alternativefact)This suggests to me that Trump equates winning wars with greatness, which fits into the "make America great again" motif. The US hasn't been winning a suitable quantity of wars recently. Unlike Bush 2, who wanted to be a "war president" and start wars for the glory of fighting wars, Trump just wants the glory of winning. It is like a business deal. Trump is anxious to make his mark in his first 100 days as president, and has talked about an intent to destroy ISIS. Given his statements, I predict that Trump will quickly attempt to start and win a war, which means going up against the weakest target that he can find, and using overwhelming force against them.
Trump, like all presidents since the US became a world power, will be making life-and-death decisions involving people all over the globe. This means that Trump will be deciding who gets to die in various specific situations. I hope that people are not stuck in the controversy over lies about Trump's inauguration crowd size, that they don't notice which unpersons the Trump administration is selecting for vaporisation.
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