Facts Illuminate: Trump can write his own story but it won't change the facts - he stood for exclusion, while his opponents march for a more egalitarian and inclusive America

Demonstrators in Washington DC. Photograph: DC Women's March by Liz Lemon (License)

Facts are what we can verifiably say about reality. We know that the sky is blue and the grass is green - or that the sky is grey and the pavement is also grey - because we can see them and can discuss it with others to reach a consensus.

We know, for instance, that in reality humans are very likely the cause of global warming, because a large body work exists on the subject. A lot of people have looked at it and discussed it with others to reach that consensus.

If you're not inclined to change your mind away from a preconceived position, having facts differ from your own views can be an inconvenience. But in politics this is usually treated as an inconvenience that can be negotiated - and 'perceived' reality is frequently rewritten.

The most recent part of reality that Donald Trump has found inconvenient is that not as many people as he wanted showed up for his inauguration - not even half as many as showed up to see Obama the first time around and maybe less even than the second. His ludicrous response was, with the collusion of his Press Secretary, to try and 'set right' reality - claiming the highest attendance anyway and denying photographic evidence to the contrary (BBC, 2017).

Those defending him spoke of 'alternative facts', a phrase that shows a profound misunderstanding of both the word 'alternative' and the word 'facts'. But facts in public life are not a hand at a poker table, inconvenient cards to be arranged, bluffed and played to your best advantage.

Romano Prodi, reminded us (Popham, 2006) - when he used the Scottish poet Andrew Lang's words to describe his opponent Silvio Berlusconi, another populist political opportunist - that the facts are there to guide us, not the other way around:

"He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination."

So in that spirit - instead of making the facts fit in a way that suits us - let's ask: what do the facts tell us?

Well, the turnout at the respective inaugurations of Obama and Trump indicate that perhaps the election of Barack Obama was the more significant milestone - one that perhaps even outstripped his own Presidency.

Yet Trump's election also says something. There is a lot of dissatisfaction in America. A lot of people bought Trump's salesmanship - he is, after all, more of a brand ambassador than a property tycoon. His pitch was above all was exclusionary, offering an exclusive society to people who felt they had been dispossessed - and his nationalistic rhetoric gave those people, predominantly white and male, scapegoats.

However, the day after his inauguration, millions turned out under the Women's March banner in direct opposition to the attitudes, particularly towards women, that he has espoused - even as many as one in a hundred in America alone. The people united under the Women's March banner were of all genders and ethnicities, many of them Trump's favoured scapegoats, and they turned out in what may be (real) record numbers in support of equality and inclusion on Saturday (Frostenson, 2017).

America is large and diverse. If Trump wants to pitch the idea of an exclusive America, the facts suggest he should get used to his opponents outnumbering his supporters - his opponents did win the popular vote in 2016, after all. Those opponents, the real alternative, are rallying to the idea of an a more egalitarian, inclusive America. They're being led by the facts (Scanlon, 2014; Wilkinson, 2011).

References

'Trump claims media 'dishonest' over crowd photos'; on the BBC; 22 January 2016.

Peter Popham's 'Berlusconi and Prodi exchange insults in debate'; in The Independent; 3 April 2006.

'What to expect from President Trump? To see how an opportunist backed by the far right will fare in government, look no further than Italy's Silvio Berlusconi'; in The Alternative; 14 November 2016.

Sarah Frostenson's 'The Women's Marches may have been the largest demonstration in US history'; on Vox; 22 January 2016.

TM Scanlon's 'The 4 biggest reasons why inequality is bad for society'; on TED; 3 June 2014.

Richard Wilkinson's 'Why inequality is bad for you -- and everyone else'; on CNN; 6 November 2011