What's Wrong With "Alternative Facts"?

The Whiff of Hypocrisy

Not infrequently we find reason to chuckle while chewing on the morning's cornflakes.  One of the lines which has been seized upon by US President Trump's opponents is that the Trump administration has coined a phrase: "alternative facts".  This has resulted in much mockery amongst his political opponents (a category which includes most of the public media).

Hah, hah, hah.  Alternative facts!  A fact is either a fact, or not.  "Alternative facts" is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.  It confirms that Trump is living in an alternate universe.  His world is an unreal, make-believe world.  He is consequently to be considered clinically insane.  The man's an idiot.  Blah, blah, blah.

This reaction, for our part, has also generated a great deal of mirth.
 The media, the Establishment, the intellectuals, the Commentariate, and the elites have been pushing radical relativism in the schools, the universities, and the media for well over fifty years now.  Is abortion morally right or wrong?  Well, it all depends.  Upon what?  Upon how one looks at things.  One fact is that the unborn child is a human being.  An alternative fact is that the unborn child is merely a cluster of cells.  There is no absolute truth.  There are only perspectives, views, and opinions.  Are you male or alternatively female?  Neither and both.  I am what I identify myself to be in any moment of time.

Post-modernism is the hipsters glory.  In the pomo world there only ever are "alternative facts".  Post modernism is the reigning paradigm in the West.  Why, then, the outrage at poor old Trump when he takes the matter seriously, and when key figures in his administration, casually refer to "alternative facts"?  Wethinks we smell the pungent whiff of hypocrisy.

Take the small matter of gender fluidity.  Is it not glorious that this issue has been seized upon by our betters, by the faux intellectuals of our day.  Q: Are you male or female?  A: "I am what I am cos I ain't what I used to be."  The elites now demand that we all accept this world of alternative facts.  In fact to believe in and live out alternative facts--and be respected for doing so--is now pushed as a fundamental human right.   Except when it comes to President Trump and his coterie.  They are not human, and that's a fact, baby.

Ah, consistency--thou art a jewel.  But inconsistency--thou art a noisome hypocrite.