That’s a Fact, Jack

By ROSIE SORENSON

During Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, his yellow coxcomb on full display, he crowed, “I alone can fix it.” Seems what he really meant was “I alone can break it.”

He’s quite the wrecking ball, our Donald, as he fires off Bannon-created executive orders faster than corn can pop. They may or may not even be lawful. We’ll have to let the judges sort that out. Good luck to those finders of fact! Am I hearing strains of “You’re fired!” filtering out of the Oval Office?

But there he is, penis, er pen, in hand, surrounded by an adoring claque and a gazillion flags (hope they’re Made in America, unlike Trump’s other merchandise.) That’s our Donald, bathing in the worship of his sycophants, who follow along in the hymnal of Our Minister of Alternative Facts, never mind that his delusions have the potential to lead his flock toward destruction. As an old TV commercial once said, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” And Mother Nature knows her facts.

Every time Trump flies on Air Force One, he’s surrounded by about 833,000 pounds of facts—assembled by 240 design teams, with up to 40 members each working on 1,500 design issues involving three million parts provided by more than 900 suppliers.

The Donald does not fly the friendly skies on the wings of Alternative Facts.

Whenever he tweets, he’s relying on facts upon facts upon facts, algorithms chief among them. Algorithms were developed over centuries by scholars in many countries: Euclid in Greece in 300 BCE; Brahmagupta in India in the 7th century; Al-Khwarizmi (from whose name the term “algorithm” is derived) in Persia in the 9th century; Leibniz in Germany in the 17th century and so on. In other words, a lot of smart non-Americans who today might not even be allowed to immigrate. Sad.

Donald, a self-professed germophobe, relies not upon witch doctors when he’s ill, but upon FDA-regulated medical facts, i.e. research conducted by professionals using the time-tested scientific method of “Show Me the Facts!” According to the Physics Department at the University of California, Riverside, “The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusions.” Ahem.

Would Donald allow a surgeon to insist that Donald’s appendix lay not in his lower right abdomen as has been proven, but rather in the lower left quadrant of his back and that that was where the surgeon intended to operate, despite all evidence to the contrary? I suspect at that moment facts might take on a new sheen of veracity for our Donald.

As much as I rail about Donald’s alternative reality, though, I do understand how easy it is to become enthralled. According to Donald’s fabulistic view of the universe, I should be able to walk into my bank and insist that my balance is $750,000 and not the paltry sum that it is. Or to forget to disclose, as did Steve Mnuchin in his Senate hearings for Secretary of the Treasury, that I actually had $100 million in assets stashed away somewhere and simply forgot to tell anyone about it. In the words of our beloved Rick Perry, “Oops!”

Now I know we all have a bit of the sociopath in us, but most of us know better than to indulge in a larcenous impulse to steal all the cookies. Are not 10 bags of “Thin Mints” enough?

Although he could never admit it, Donald eats facts (counting on the FDA to keep the food supply safe). He sleeps facts (counting on consumer protection agencies to keep mattress makers from using harmful batting). He and his wives have given birth to facts. No explanation needed there.

I know it just kills Donald that he cannot make a deal with the fact-based community, believing as he does that he alone can make facts great again.

But here’s the thing: My facts can beat up Donald’s alternatives any day of the week.

Rosie Sorenson of Richmond, Calif., is humor columnist for the Foolish Times and has been published in other publications as well as popular anthologies, including The Magic of Memoir, edited by Brooke Warner and Dr. Linda Joy Meyers. Her essays have been broadcast on KQED-FM in San Francisco in its Perspectives series. One of her essays for that series won the Listener Favorite Award. Email RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2017

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