Every day we are faced with an administration that seeks to alter the facts to fit their narrative. From Sean Spicer’s comments about the size of the inaugural crowd to Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts, the spin on the truth has been the basis of deflection in this White House.
Now, we have the spin doctors attempting to twist the story of a phone call with the Ukrainian President to be about Joe Biden, and not about Donald Trump’s attempt to involve a foreign government in the 2020 presidential election.
As they made the rounds of the Sunday morning news shows, Republicans like Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) spewed rapid-fire commentary meant to confuse, obfuscate and deflect from the impeachment issues. By attempting to paint Joe Biden as the criminal, they tried to minimize the actual fact that Trump tried talk the leader of Ukraine into investigating his potential election opponent and thus influence the 2020 electoral process.
None of this should come as a surprise to even the casual political viewer. Spurred on by its propaganda network, Fox, Donald Trump has governed via Twitter. The thing is, he doesn’t allow facts to get in the way of a juicy bit of gossip detrimental to those he sees as opposing him.
It’s no secret that Trump binge watches Fox during what has been called Executive Time. From there, he formulates his day based on the latest spin on the events of the previous day. It’s also no secret that the organization that calls itself Fox “news” is run by the entertainment division of Fox broadcasting, with a heavy right-wing bias.
Despite this, Trump relies heavily on this source, along with several right wing conspiracy websites, including QAnon , Brietbart, InfoWars and others for his spin on events, while calling those that report unbiased accounts “Fake News”. All the while his followers confuse ratings with facts, reasoning that higher ratings replace factual data. In their world, facts are based upon majority opinion that is decided by Nielsen ratings.
Denial of facts is the basis for the spin doctors of the right. They deny Climate Change. They deny that Trump lies. They deny that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump. Their denial even spreads to the fact that Russia used the NRA as a means to promote Trump in 2016 and threaten to do so again. Most frightening, they deny that accepting help from a foreign government in 2020 is wrong..
When will the spinning stop and reality take hold once again? Only time will tell.