Trump versus the Experts

Headline:
NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump

The next time a hurricane is on the way, I won’t visit the NOAA website to see if I’m in the path of the storm. Instead, I’ll call the White House. Multiple news sources report NOAA scientists were advised to not contradict anything Trump had to say about the storm prediction. If that’s true and NOAA is simply relaying Trump’s forecast, why not skip the middleman? Go directly to the person who knows what the storm will do. Go to the top.

In fact, do we really need NOAA? Do we really need a National Hurricane Center? For that matter, do we really need the National Weather Service? All of these agencies could be replaced with tweets from you-know-who. Think of the savings! Plus, the president would be occupied with weather predictions and wouldn’t have time to rip up treaties we have with other nations.

Headline:
Trump contradicts CBP head on Bahamian refugees

I guess Customs and Border Protection now have to be micro-managed from the White House.

At least we can be comforted by the knowledge there is nothing bad happening around the globe that might require our president’s attention. We know that because if bad stuff was happening, Trump wouldn’t have time to waste on twitter feuds with celebrities like John Legend and Chrissy Teigen. And he wouldn’t have time to redraw weather maps to support his own predictions.

Headline:
US mental health staff warned not to contradict Trump after mass shootings
Human Services directive orders medical professionals not to post anything on social media running contrary to president's comments on tragedies in El Paso and Dayton

Want to know who else has contradicted Trump? Here’s a short list:

• All of our nation’s intelligence agencies
• National Park Service 
• Rolling Thunder organizers
• All 4 living presidents

And so it goes. You can go to your favorite search engine and enter “Trump contradicts” and you’ll get a list of news articles that will keep you busy reading for weeks.

It reminds me of the Danish tale called The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is, of course, not an exact comparison, but in the story written by Hans Christian Andersen the crowds around the emperor were supposed to believe what they were told rather than the evidence of their own eyes. “Believe what I tell you, not what you see” seems to be the motto of the current administration.