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Alternative truth

The most recent phrase to be included in the Oxford dictionary is “fake news” a term that

is commonly used by the United States president, Donald Trump. Fake news refers to

information that is manufactured to influence people and their opinion about something. It can be

said that the phrase is false or in other words, it is in an alternative truth. The latter refers to data

and information that can lead to illusion and misperception. Genuinely, there can be no

alternative truth as there is only one side of an event that conforms to the truth and not the

purported alternative truth which can be termed as falsehood. But, in politics which heavily rely

on the media, the truth can be twisted to yield certain expectations and produce particular results.

The public is the one that is sandwiched between what is the truth and what is the alternative

truth while the politicians and the media ride on the general perception portrayed by the

alternative truth and the intentional manipulation or message. In this paper, alternative truth and

its impact will be broadly illustrated and a conclusion drawn on whether alternative truth is good

for the growth and development of democracy in the United States government.
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Magicians and painters devise clever tricks that make human beings experience things

that are not real as they rely on cognitive and perceptual errors that human beings make on a

daily basis. In political platforms, misdirection together with deception is two core concepts that

politicians use to achieve a particular living. Politics all over the world is marred with

irregularities that are geared towards winning the public opinion. In the United States, the same

has happened over the years, and it has been used to win votes and hearts of the people.

Politicians highly depend on altered truths to win elections, and they do not care what such truth

may do to someone’s image (Fish). Most of the politicians have families whom they care, and

they also have people who look up to them for inspiration and motivation. Some altered truths

may dent an image of a politician, and in the end, the country may end up voting for the

governor, senator, and even the president. Propaganda is another term for alternative truth, and

from experience, political scenes have various propagandas that confuse the public (Parmar).

This propaganda is driven towards a specific motive that may influence a massive chunk of

voters. As expected, propaganda is not friendly and can make someone look ugly in the eyes of

the public and attract a lot of hate. Unhealthy alternative truths, commonly referred to as

propaganda in the political scenes have seen to dent the image of very prominent people.

However, it is tough to know what is the truth and what is propaganda as the public as

brainwashed to believe that a particular politician is dirty and unworthy of an elective seat. Over

the years, United States citizens have been fed with alternative truths, and it has been hard for

them to tell the real truth. Based on this propaganda, the country has ended up having the wrong

leaders in some of the elective positions. Unworthy leaders have always been a stumbling block

to development and democracy in the country.

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Our image and picture of what is a real change when people learn something emergent

about our world. Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists to ever live, showed to the world

that physics of Aristotelian could not be termed as absolute truth. Quantum physics and

relativistic physics, in turn, superseded the physic from Isaac Newton. Every discovery that

human beings have made about physics following Isaac Newton’s has brought them nearer to

capitalized and absolute truth. But, there is a possibility that there will be new and unpredicted

observations in the future that will topple down and defile the accepted wisdom from all the

theories derived by our predecessors. In science, it is tough to verify any given hypothesis by

using data, but one contradictory observation is capable of refuting a scientific view. In other

words, it is hard to prove any hypotheses to be true but can be proven false by one contradictory

observation. It can, however, be claimed that science is outstanding in disproving propositions.

In a recent political event in the United States, during Donald’s Trump inauguration, the media

spread pictures of the number of people that attended this event. From these circulating on social

media and mainstream media, it was crystal clear that only a few people participated in this

occasion as compared to the previous inauguration ceremonies ("Donald Trump Inauguration: A

Day Of Ceremony, Protests, And Celebration"). However, Donald Trump blamed the media for

circulating fake pictures of the ceremony and depriving the public of the truth. The president’s

hypothesis about the number of people that had attended the ceremony was only possible from

his point of view and from where he was standing on the dais. Trump might have thought that

the number of people and the size of the crowd was huge and stretched further to the National

Mall. There is also a possibility that the president also lied because it is hard to refute what was

seen from the pictures. But, for a hypothesis to survive there has to be sufficient data to support

it, and from this, the aerial photographs told it all (Knight, and Tsoukas). The white asserted that
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the crowd was the biggest in history, but from the evidence provided, that was an alternative

truth and a false hypothesis. Therefore, from evidence, it is hard to come up with alternative

truths to lure the public to believe in fake information. As seen from the scenario mentioned

above, it is almost impossible to come up with alternative truths in certain situations if the

evidence contradicts what some people, which in this case the politicians, may assert is true. It is

therefore expected of the public to heavily rely on evidence just like the scientists do to know

what the truth is and what is false.

Based on a human being neural wiring, it is impossible for people to see or think in

absolute dimensions. For instance, the eye cannot count photons like a light meter. Humans

understand the world based on their convictions and what might be white for you may be black

for another person. The perception of a person depends on perspective and context in which

certain information is passed. One of the most recent political agenda by the Donald’s Trump

administration was to build a wall that separates the United States from Mexico, to stop illegal

migration. During his campaigns, the president had clearly stated that Mexico would finance the

wall. However, until of late, it has been realized that the Mexican government is not capable of

financing the wall because it does not work under the jurisdiction of the United States

government. Many Trump supporters bought this, and they knew that Mexicans were to fund the

wall and therefore they would not be burdened with hefty tax due to the massive amounts of

funds that are needed to erect the wall across the border. Based on perception, some people

would have thought that building the wall was possible but could not be financed by the

Mexicans ("Opinion | Trump’S Wall Of Shame"). But due to a false illusion created by Donald

Trump, many supporters believed that they were not going to pay for the wall until of all late

when some of the Trump supporters started making contributions towards the building of the
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wall. From this scenario, it is clear that someone’s perception can create an alternative truth that

is far away from reality.

The paper has explored alternative truth and how it has affected democracy, the rule of

law and many things in the political arena. Hypotheses have been created by people in

government to make the public believe in absolute truths. Propaganda has been formulated by

politicians to garner support to win elective positions and finally, based on perception; politicians

have managed to brainwash the public to support specific government projects. The facts

mentioned above are essential as they help us understand why it is important to dig deeper into

some facts before giving someone support. Is there another way that one can use to identify the

kind of brainwash our politicians exercise on voters?

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References

"Donald Trump Inauguration: A Day Of Ceremony, Protests And Celebration". Nytimes.Com,

2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/donald-trump-inauguration.html.

"Opinion | Trump’S Wall Of Shame". Nytimes.Com, 2019,

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/opinion/trump-wall-shutdown.html.

Fish, Will. "“Post-Truth” Politics And Illusory Democracy". Psychotherapy And Politics

International, vol 14, no. 3, 2016, pp. 211-213. Wiley, doi:10.1002/ppi.1387.

Knight, Eric, and Haridimos Tsoukas. "When Fiction Trumps Truth: What ‘Post-Truth’ And

‘Alternative Facts’ Mean For Management Studies". Organization Studies, 2018, p.

017084061881455. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/0170840618814557.

Parmar, Inderjeet. "US Presidential Election 2012: Post-Truth Politics". Political Insight, vol 3,

no. 2, 2012, pp. 4-7. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1111/j.2041-9066.2012.00103.x.