1984 tops Amazon list after 'alternative facts' claim

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Following a succession of false claims by President Donald Trump, and White House backing of "alternative facts", George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece 1984 has soared to the top of Amazon's best seller list on Wednesday.

Orwell's 1949 novel introduced the world to "doublethink", embodied in the now infamous slogans of the book's English Socialist Party, particularly "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength".

The book appears to have struck a chord after Trump falsely claimed and then refused to back down from assertions that his inaugural crowd stretched to the Washington Monument, despite visual evidence to the contrary, and that three to five million voters cast their ballots illegally, a claim rejected by election experts.

Over the weekend, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway defended the White House's explanation of Trump's comments about the inauguration by saying the executive mansion offered "alternative facts" -- harkening to 1984's "doublethink".

There is also no evidence of the widespread voter fraud that Trump has baselessly alleged, but he pledged to launch an investigation into it early Wednesday morning after members of his party called on him to stop making such controversial statements.

Joining 1984 in Amazon's best-sellers list are fellow critiques of totalitarianism, including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World at no. 20, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 at no. 28.

Trump's now eponymous The Art of the Deal sits at 31, behind a separate printing of 1984.