Dear Commons Community,
Patricia McGuire, President of Trinity Washington University, in a blog posting entitled, On Lies and the Truths We Must Tell, skewers the Trump administration and specifically alumna, Kellyanne Conway. McGuire states that Conway, Trinity Class of 1989, has been a major manipulator of facts who facilitates much of Trump’s agenda. Here is an excerpt:
“Fear is the most powerful weapon dictators have to seize and maintain their power. Fear preys on the most basic psychological needs of human beings to be free from physical harm, to be economically secure, to protect and care for our children and families. Autocrats generate fear through capitalizing on ignorance and spreading lies — particularly widespread ignorance of other peoples and cultures and lies about their ability to commit violence and take away jobs.
We Americans study the history of tyranny and exclaim, “That’s terrible, but it would not happen here!” as we congratulate ourselves on the robust state of our democracy. The experience of the last few months now exposes this once-confident boast as terribly naive and perhaps even dangerous as a new administration indulges in a remarkable torrent of false and misleading statements as a basis for policy and action.
The gravest lie we are grappling with at the present moment is the Trump Administration’s cruel and unreasonable war on immigrants — mostly people who are black and brown, and Muslim — Mexicans and refugees from central America, Syrian refugees, people from certain countries in the Middle East and Africa including Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. Trump’s “travel ban” for people from the latter 7 nations is currently stayed by federal court order, but the executive order imposing the ban has spread fear and uncertainty among many people in the United States and worldwide. Outrageously, President Trump subsequently attacked the judges who ruled against him, and has his surrogates proclaiming that, “The powers of the president…will not be questioned.” THAT, my friends, is an invitation to rise in vigorous defense of the balance of powers!
….Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway, Trinity Class of 1989, has played a large role in facilitating the manipulation of facts and encouraging the grave injustice being perpetrated by the Trump Administration’s war on immigrants among many other issues. She is one of President Trump’s primary spokespersons, an almost daily figure on cable news shows. Some people admire her staunch advocacy for her client’s positions, and others applaud the fact that she was the first woman to manage a successful presidential campaign. But in fact, as is true of many of President Trump’s statements, her advocacy on his behalf is often at variance with the truth. Ms. Conway invented the now-infamous phrase “alternative facts” to defend Trump’s claims about the size of crowds at his inauguration, a thinly-veiled autocratic scheme to try to claim that the Trump inauguration drew the biggest crowd in history when, in fact, it was on the smaller side. Ms. Conway has been part of a team that thinks nothing of shaping and spreading a skein of lies as a means to secure power. Perhaps the “Bowling Green Massacre” comment was truly a mistake, as she claims, but she repeated that canard on three different occasions as an explanation for why the travel ban, an executive order that clearly discriminates against Muslims, was necessary.”
McGuire concludes:
“As I write about truth and justice, I recall the heroic example of Sister of Notre Dame, Dorothy Stang, who was murdered 11 years ago today in the Amazon rainforest by ranchers who wanted to silence her advocacy for justice for the indigenous people she worked with. Sr. Dorothy did not hesitate to speak the truth on behalf of the people she served. Her ability to tell the truth, to be an advocate for people on the margins. She paid the ultimate price for her courage. While none of us can hope to have nearly that much courage, we should pray for at least enough backbone to speak out about what we see that is unjust, to raise our voices for those who cannot speak.”
Powerful message for this President’s Day!
Tony
