January
20, 2017 “his was the largest audience to ever witness an
inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe” – Sean Spicer. This Is a quote from the mouth of the current
white house secretary. What’s puzzling about this piece is not only is this
fake news but it is showing how very delusional our Whitehouse staff members
can be. “I looked out, the field was — it looked like a million, million and a
half people.”- Donald Trump. Interestingly enough so does our president. Live
pictures of the inauguration were posted, for the millions of viewers who
choose not to watch President Trump be sworn in. For those who were in
attendance, saw on TV, and saw the released photographs saw that there clearly were
large spots of green grass unoccupied by people, as well as large gaps of space
on the mall.
According to history to Trumps
history “This was the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings
have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of
highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the
grass eliminated this visual.” In normal American history, an estimated 1.8
million people attended President Barrack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Simply
based off trumps statement it shows ignorant or how contradictory he truly is.
I mean think it about in simple math in his own according to his own word even
if it was a million and a half people there at the recent inauguration it still
isn’t more or equivalent for that matter to president Obama’s 2009 election.
Another discrepancy to Trumps numbers I found is original largest crowd to
attend an inauguration was president Johnson’s in 1965 1.2 million estimated
were in attendance. This record was broken by president Obama who was and still
holds the record for the largest crowd to view an inauguration. He has even
“miss-counted” on the number of people who used public transportation to get to
his inauguration. Obamas Inauguration 2009 an estimated 1.1 million citizens
used public transportation to get to the inauguration (another record), was
once again underplayed by Trumps administration when they again claimed that
more than 1.5million took the public transit; when actually only 517,000 did
which less than the average 600,000 plus who ride the public transit daily. The
numbers are baffling. Don’t get me wrong I understand lying in a part of being
in politics; or it is at least how I interpret I mean you get a bunch of rich predominantly
white men to say all the good they’ll do and bad they’ll rid if elected just to
turn around and completely not do what they. Come he even lied about the
weather. I found this article to very helpful and insightful with that being
sad I plan to use this article with the Cluster criticism as my bases while
backing it with quantitative facts found in the example above.
The "dispute" about the size of the crowd at the most recent inauguration is much more of a manufactured "dispute" than anything else. Trump's silly insistence that his ceremony was the best-attended became a convenient means for the professional media to ridicule Trump. Articles that report on historical attendances for previous ceremonies seem to be efforts at "told-you-so" messages more than anything else. The debate about crowd size rather morphed into another excuse to divide people into those more willing to withhold judgment on Mr. Trump v. those were already certain that he represented a dangerous choice for president.
ReplyDeleteI think the interesting phenomenon here might be how articles about even the most mundane, irrelevant facts have been turned into partisan talking points that reaffirm whether or not you identify with #resistance or not. Your comments about expecting some lying as being "a part of being in politics" is humorous - but be careful of assumptions regarding how the views of rich white men translate into election results. There can be no doubt that political power in this country is predominantly held by white men - but there is less evidence that the views of the country are similarly controlled by that demographic.
Here, rather than looking at an article which debates crowd size at the Inauguration, I might suggest that you treat this silliness as one element in a larger strategy to ridicule, and thus de-legitimize this president. Let me know how I might help.
I completely understand what you mean with using this essentially as an example of his irrationality on a larger basis. With that being said would it be appropriate to incorporate the means of his "Silliness" as the foundation for a critical paper? Historically presidents for what i can find didn't have/need to goto great measures nor make a mockery of the highest achievement an American could obtain. As our commander and chief it seems very brash to very "silly" to do so. I guess i understand the use of "silliness" now but so many examples show this everything he does is essentially comical.
ReplyDeleteYes - that's what I'm getting at. This president, perhaps more than any other in history, has his actions framed in a mocking tone. The consistency of this tone renders anyone who would support any initiative from this president as another target for mockery. You imply that "everything he does is essentially comical;" but I would suggest that everything Mr. Trump does is as serious as everything done by Mr. Obama before him. But when the default reaction to presidential action is to mock the office - what effect might that have on those who consume political media only occasionally?
ReplyDeleteI think the Internet (and Trump's clear mastery of using social network media to dominate the public conversation) is the real game-changer here. Because of the immediacy of online communication, raw and unfiltered messages become part of the fabric of public discourse much more readily than any time before.
I might also suggest that enthusiasm for the #resistance movement has made it quite fashionable to protest loudly and even violently. Interestingly, there is emerging evidence that some of the protesters don't really even understand what they are protesting; such as in this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/opinion/sunday/charles-murrays-provocative-talk.html?ref=opinion&_r=1
Let me know how I can help. Your first task has to be the selection of an artifact to serve as the basis for your analysis.