On January 20, 2009, a young politician from Hawaii by the name of Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States. Attendees from all corners of the United States flooded the National Mall. Federal officials responsible for coordinating security estimated that 1.8 million people had traveled to the capital for the inauguration, a statistic that was not contested by the National Park Service.

On January 20, 2017, more than a third of the white tarp covering the Lincoln Reflecting Pool was visible as Obama transferred executive power to Donald J. Trump. Where were the other hundreds of thousands? Perhaps preparing to protest the next day in the Women’s March, where crowd-scientists Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still estimate that there were three times more people than at the inauguration. Banding together in a sea of pink paraphernalia, women, men, and children of all backgrounds rallied in DC and worldwide.

According to President Trump and his cabinet, these numbers are inaccurate. On January 21 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer provided statistics that were rapidly refuted by news outlets from CNN to the New York Times. Taking no questions from reporters, Spicer said that three spacious sections of National Mall each held several hundred thousand people, and were “full when the president took the oath of office” – despite photographic evidence that proves otherwise.

Last November, I penned a column in the wake of the election, writing that I was, “trying to find it within my conscience to have faith.” As of right now, I am trying to find it within my conscience not to scream. It is unacceptable for a press secretary–much less, the secretary representing the leader of our country–to lie in front of millions of Americans.

Forget something as seemingly trivial as crowd statistics–how will we, the American people, be able to count on the regulated but expected honesty and transparency of our officials when an actual problem arises?

Pollster and presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway was given the opportunity on January 22 to rectify the fabricated statements in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” When host Chuck Todd pressed Conway, she didn’t apologize on behalf of the Trump administration for misleading the American people, nor did she admit that the statement was untrue. “Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” Conway said. “You’re saying it’s a falsehood…and they’re giving…our Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave alternative facts to that.”

This was the first–and hopefully last– time I had ever heard the phrase “alternative fact” uttered by a politician to describe inaccurate information. Simply put, there is no such thing as an alternative fact. It shouldn’t have to take the Merriam-Webster Dictionary subtweeting a White House aid with the “definition of the word fact” for us to realize that something is terribly wrong.

If this briefing and its aftermath are any indications of what the next four years may look like, we could find ourselves turning to political fiction rather than politics itself. Perhaps George Orwell’s acclaimed novel “1984,” which depicts a totalitarian state that limits freedom of thought by way of a language called Newspeak.

This language removes words with negative meanings to enforce the authority of those in power. Likewise Conway’s word choice that Sunday attempted to obscure the negative connotation of the word “falsehood” by suggesting that the notion of an “alternative fact” exists.

The Trump campaign’s deception during the election cycle was frustrating at best when his presidency was not yet a reality. But now that he is the leader of the free world, he can no longer afford to speak freely if that includes inventing works of fiction presented as fact.

According to a statement delivered by Spicer the Tuesday following the inauguration, President Trump believes between three million and five million vote were cast illegally in the 2016 election. When questioned by the press on whether President Trump would call for an investigation into what could potentially be the largest political scandal of the decade–assuming that this egregious claim has a speck of truth–Spicer would say only, “Maybe we will.”

There is no evidence that widespread voter fraud occurred, but the fact that President Trump still feels comfortable crafting “alternative facts” for the public speaks volumes about what his presidency may have in store. He is the most controversial and polarizing candidate to be elected to our nation’s highest office in modern history. As a citizen, I would never wish failure on Washington–and I certainly don’t now–but our executive needs to do better.

Over the course of the next few months, if not sooner, President Trump will need to repair his relationship with the media if he wants to become the great president he claims to be. While I recognize that this seems unlikely, it is his duty as President of the United States to uphold the Constitution. That includes protecting the freedom of the press. A lie is the only alternative to a fact, and this incident absolutely cannot be the control that the future of the great American experiment depends upon.