FACTS—NOT TRUMP’S “ALTERNATIVE FACTS”

I GLEAN INFORMATION from a variety of sources, among them BBC World Service, Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, London Review of Books, Voice of America (thus far), The New York Times, and The Guardian. In a Guest Essay in The New York Times, March 3, 2025, Margaret Renkl offers “Truths to Remember in a Time of Lies.”

“The brickbats,” she writes, “are meant to knock us senseless. Blow after blow, they bludgeon us. Who could possibly keep them straight?”

She does an admirable job of doing so: “I’ve been keeping a running list of truths I don’t want to lose sight of while a fake wizard and his grossly unqualified team speak lie after brazen lie to the people who elected him and to the rest of us, too.”

 Image by Carolyn Drake/Magnum Photos in The New York Times.

Here are tidbits about several of Renkl’s Truths to Remember.

Russia Invaded Ukraine. Renkl stresses, “Everyone who pays the barest attention to the news knows this, including Mr. Trump, but that truth didn’t stop him from claiming the opposite as he sought to justify abandoning Ukraine in favor of an alliance with Vladimir Putin, whom Mr. Trump has refused to call a dictator.”

What’s more, of course, Trump has the audacity to call Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. 

Climate Change is Making Natural Disasters More Disastrous. “The world’s glaciers are melting, with calamitous implications for life on Earth,” Renkl observes, “but the president of the United States calls climate change a ‘hoax.’ Now his administration is making steep cuts to the staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which collects and analyzes climate data, including lifesaving roles at the National Weather Service, which warns us when severe weather is headed our way.”

The Pace of Climate Change is Accelerating. “Even so,” Renkl says, “Mr. Trump is working to undo the climate resilience measures of the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act. He has also threatened to scrap the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is already reeling from job cuts, including the loss of those who are most experienced in helping communities recover from disasters.”

Trump has already blamed California for its disastrous wildfires. How will he address the now reoccurring climate-change threats to red states?

Renewable Energy is Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels. Renkl recounts, “But that isn’t stopping the Trump administration from halting federal approvals for wind and solar projects or from rolling back funding allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act to speed the transition to clean energy. And he’s making these cuts — as he promised Big Oil executives — though his own voters benefit from those projects the most.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development Saves Millions of Lives.  Renkl writes, “When he unilaterally — and probably illegally — gutted U.S.A.I.D. by firing staff members and canceling funding approved by Congress, President Trump ensured that people will suffer and die, many of them children. Children will die of polio and tuberculosis and Ebola and H.I.V. and malaria. Children will starve to death. Children will die of thirst. Children will die in war. We have the resources to save their lives. Our government has opted not to.”

See human aspects of “Fail Fast, Learn Faster.” 

DOGE Isn’t Making Government More Efficient. Rentl says, “The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is a wrecking ball whose efforts are making lines longer and visiting less safe at our beloved national parks, cutting staff at the I.R.S. during tax return season, imperiling crucial scientific research, rendering our nuclear arsenal less safe. Also less safe: consumer products, the air we breathe and the water we drink and the food we eat. Flying. Driving. Our data.”

See also DOGE Flunks Arithemetic.” 

Vaccines Save Lives. “Nevertheless,” Renkl notes, “the Trump administration is suppressing information about flu vaccines during a pitiless flu year and has already canceled a meeting during which scientists would have planned for the coming flu season. (It’s not too late to get a flu shot this year.)”

Abortion Bans Kill. Renkl notes, “Medications and operations used in abortions are often the same medications and operations needed to save the life of a woman undergoing a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. We know that. What we don’t know is how many deaths have been the result of incoherent red-state anti-abortion laws. That’s because Republicans don’t want us to know. Even without that information, nearly two-thirds of Americans support access to legal abortion.”

Truth Matters. Renkl concludes her analyses with “Rewriting American history will not change American history. A law is still a law, even when a felon continues to flout the law. The truth is still the truth, even if you fire people working to combat your lies. Americans have always understood, if imperfectly at times, that truth matters.”

She continues, “Even the Trump administration understands the power of truth. Why else would it be deleting data — on climate change, on police misconduct, on census numbers, on medical research and on gender, among others?”

“Republicans won’t tell us the truth,” Renkl says, “and Democrats can’t seem to rouse themselves into an organized effort to combat their lies. We must tell the truth ourselves.”

I agree wholeheartedly. I strive that SimanaitisSays takes part in this. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com. 2025