According to taste, we await the pending event with apprehension, open-mouthed astonishment or dull indifference. The second Presidential inauguration of Donald John Trump, that is. Remember the first? On Friday 20th January 2017? Why, of course you do. After all, was it not attended by the biggest audience in American history, both in person and on screen?
Well, no. But Team Trump repeatedly insisted that it was, contrary to evidence. In reality, the attendance for Barack Obama had been notably greater. Challenged on this, the President’s spokesperson resorted to saying that they were presenting “alternative facts”.
That phrase has stuck with me. In practice, it was probably just a way of wriggling out of a quandary. But it seemed to me, at the time and since, to mean more. It hinted at a parallel approach to political and public discourse. One in which significance attaches to claim and counter-claim, rather than objective reality. One in which rhetoric and invective matter more than fact. One in which there are alternative truths. And what matters is to persuade enough people that your version is the more attractive, the more cogent. The more populist, if you like.
Now, of course, there can be competing interpretations of circumstances. So much is standard in partisan politics. This trend is rather different. In contemporary discourse, the focus is no longer upon establishing the truth by discussion. Indeed, it is not upon the truth at all. Rather, it is upon trashing your rivals and establishing your primacy, utterly regardless of objective evidence.
Just look at developments in the past week. Apple........