DECEMBER 15, FRIDAY

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

Another personal attempt to understand the world around me and one that may fit no one else. I was always a little stupefied by the claims that Trump and others made about alternative facts, an alternative reality. When Trump claimed his inauguration crowd was much bigger than Obama’s and the photographs showed otherwise, he was unfazed. When Trump claimed that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and the facts and courts showed otherwise, he was unfazed.

Finally, when wondering about the reality of myth and the reality of science, I begin to understand where Trump and his followers stood. Objective science is one reality, emotional mythic stories are another reality. 14 year old unmarried Mary suddenly pregnant is one reality, Mary the mother of God being spoken to by Gabriel an angel and impregnated by God is another reality. Out of one eye you can see one reality and out of the other another reality. It depends upon which eye you look at things with.

If a MAGA person were writing the book of Trump 100 years from now, or even twenty, Trump’s inauguration crowd would stretch to the horizon, and the election results would be the work of Satan who would be defeated in 2024 and banished to hell. What is real about mythology is how intensely alive it makes us feel. What is real about science is what is observed and measured correctly. To me Trump as messiah sounds wacko and obscene, but if you are looking for a savior to write the wrongs of the world, Trump can not only be your savior but can be an object of worship, transforming your life. It doesn’t matter whether Trump’s actions are immoral or his policies are impossible to achieve, all that matters is that when you are in his presence dressed in red, white and blue and waving your arms wildly, you feel as on top of the world, as alive, as it is possible to be.

I know that I am tongue in cheek and that Trump is not a plausible savior, but being fully alive seems to be a state of mind, like romantic attraction, that has little to do with an objective, measured view of the world. It is a mode in which the scientific reality, the world of the New York Times, really is an alternative reality. What is most real, what is really real is whatever it is that makes you feel intensely alive, Biblical stories perhaps, whether they are actual or not.