Thursday, February 2nd, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, now famous for coining the term "alternative facts" in reference to what we laypeople call lies, let out some alternative facts of her own. In an attempt to defend Trump's ban on migrants from seven countries of primarily Arab, Muslim populations, Conway asserted, much like Trump himself, that such a ban was a matter of national security. Her logic was that many refugees and immigrants could be radicalized terrorists in disguise, infiltrating our country, just like the masterminds of the Bowling Green Massacre. However, she has a huge problem in her reasoning: namely that the Bowling Green Massacre never happened.
After being called out by social media users, Conway admitted that "honest mistakes abound." She also said that she had meant to say "the Bowling Green terrorists," linking to a story of two Iraqi nationalists who were convicted in 2013 of sending aid to Al Qaeda agents back in Iraq. The two have been in prison ever since. However, a massacre in our own country is much different from long-distance support for a terrorist organization, and no one who actually read up on these charges could mistake the two.
Additionally, I don't believe that using the "honest mistake" excuse is enough for us to back down on a claim this seriously flawed. Conway took no responsibility in correcting herself beyond two measly tweets. Pretending otherwise highlights a drastically hypocritical change in how we treat Conway compared to how we've treated every other political gaffe. If we make Hillary Clinton apologize for using the word "deplorable" for the better part of a year, would it not be duplicitous to pretend that Conway's error can be erased to a clean slate with 280 characters or less? And to what end? To give a pass on blatant Islamophobia?
Not to mention the fact that Conway being so woefully unprepared for an interview is ironically and unfortunately so characteristic of Trump's administration so far, that we seem to think that this deception is acceptable, or if not acceptable, at least the new normal. But honestly, I don't believe that accepting a lie based on a top political aid skimming a news headline is doing anyone any favors. It's a disservice to a country whose history is made of revolutionaries who said, "No, we deserve better. We deserve political representation. We deserve equal rights. We deserve the chance to elect someone who cares about us."
And yet somehow Americans decided mediocrity and downright misrepresentation is okay now. Why? Pull those receipts. Challenge the people who control the narrative to include you and the facts in it, or we'll be just another cautionary tale about censorship and rolling over to give way to others' demands. I'm not willing to let that happen to my country, and neither should any of us, for that matter.
