There’s being charitable and then there’s ignoring flat out disinformation.
Let’s not forget that the phrase “Alternative facts” was coined on day 3 of the Trump presidency to defend the lie that he had the biggest inauguration crowd ever.
This wasn’t a glass half full situation, this was someone saying it’s up to the brim when it’s under a half. That in itself to me reflects bad intent: lying from the seat of government about something so easily disproved at the start of your presidency, then spending days trying to back it up, is pure gaslighting.
The Trump administration deserves most of the blame here, but it’s very hard to treat with charity the subset of his supporters who repeat blatant lies like the above, because they are being willfully ignorant at best and acting in bad faith otherwise.
Among the long list of important things to worry about in politics, the number of people at Trump's inauguration isn't one of them, and I wonder what number of his own supporters even care. It must be vanishingly small.
The response to "there can be more than one view of reality that is valid and true" isn't to respond with "lies are lies and using lies in place of truth is lunacy", (to paraphrase the parent comments, perhaps more fairly than the latter deserves) so to remain focused on "Alternative facts" is to be led astray by what amounts to a straw man. That whole debacle was a petty response by a narcissist to a petty narrative line by a media that isn't focused on what matters anyway and anyone repeating the White House line was more than likely acting tribally - as was anyone criticising the numbers. The proverbial storm in a teacup.
Regardless, who is arguing for "Alternative facts" here?
Nobody is arguing for them here. I was saying that the people pushing them should not be given any charity, as they have proved themselves to be acting in bad faith time and time again.
There is a clear line of behavior that began with lying about crowd size and extended throughout the presidency, and yes a lot of it is driven by narcissism. It’s mostly not harmless though. A recent deadly example is how Trump supporters (speaking generally again) act concerning COVID. The president and his cohorts said “masks don’t matter, it’ll disappear soon anyway” for months and months, and his supporters believed it despite factual evidence, which has worsened the pandemic.
Tribalism is the word I was seeking, thank you.
Reading the thread again, I think you may be putting more weight on the use of “complete lunacy” than the poster intended. That was a reference to its parent post, which used the same words while taking “reality isn’t a point of view” out of context to mean “there is only one way to think about reality.” If there’s a straw man here, it’s all the way up there.
Let’s not forget that the phrase “Alternative facts” was coined on day 3 of the Trump presidency to defend the lie that he had the biggest inauguration crowd ever.
This wasn’t a glass half full situation, this was someone saying it’s up to the brim when it’s under a half. That in itself to me reflects bad intent: lying from the seat of government about something so easily disproved at the start of your presidency, then spending days trying to back it up, is pure gaslighting.
The Trump administration deserves most of the blame here, but it’s very hard to treat with charity the subset of his supporters who repeat blatant lies like the above, because they are being willfully ignorant at best and acting in bad faith otherwise.