Happy Camp Complex, Klamath National Forest, Northern California. Photo: US Forest Service.
The man who gave us the war in Iran, mass deportation, murders on the high seas, inflation, a trade war with our closest ally, measles, explosive diarrhea, and is now threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center if he can’t put his name on it, also pulled National Park firefighters from duty in the West to help beautify DC for his 80th birthday.
I know in the list of Trump outrages this may not rank very high, but what sort of goddamn jerk would pull away people needed in one of our worst fire seasons ever to make Washington look nicer for his birthday? This shifting was especially absurd because the parks were already short-staffed. Elon Musk had reduced personnel by around 25 percent with his “DOGE” cuts.
It is difficult to muster enough contempt for this destructive act of vanity. Our national parks are a great treasure. They are already endangered due to global warming, which Trump claims to be too stupid to recognize. Just last year, large chunks of the North Rim of Grand Canyon burned, including the historic lodge, because the Park lacked the resources to effectively contain the fire. We are seeing more damage in and around parks this year as high temperatures and lack of rain leave the area vulnerable to wildfires.
By contrast, DC was doing just fine until Trump decided to tear up the whole area behind the White House for his UFC fights, from which he stood to personally profit. He also tore down the East Wing of the White House and left a gigantic construction site for his ridiculous ballroom. He ruined the reflecting pool with his crony flubbing the repair. And he now has the Kennedy Center covered with a tarp so that no one can see his name has been removed from the building.
Anyhow, these points are perhaps secondary to the harm he is doing in so many other areas, but it’s hard not to just say WTF? When it comes to pointless and pathetic actions of a president, it would be difficult to top this one. (Sorry, I wrote this before we got “Lake America.”)
This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.
