These are the best of times and the worst of times for opinion writers. On one hand, President Trump and his people flood the zone with mischief, disinformation and scandals. We are blessed (or cursed) with a topic-rich environment.
On the other hand, we are professionally obligated to remain immersed in Trump’s tireless conspiracy against truth, justice and the American way. It can be dispiriting, even soul-crushing, for commentators. It’s undoubtedly tedious for readers, and it can be damaging to the news media’s reputation.
A previous White House felon, Spiro Agnew, called reporters “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Trump lacks Agnew’s talent for alliteration — he simply calls us “fake.” Yet we must persist.
Trump has made it impossible for the American people today to trust their government. It’s unfortunate — hardworking Americans pay more than $2 trillion in taxes each year to support the government. We should be able to trust that it’s spending the money responsibly, protecting our privacy and rights, producing accurate information to guide public affairs. That’s not happening.
The government provides critical data on a wide range of topics, important to weather forecasting, commodity markets, retirement accounts, public health, agriculture, natural resource management, education quality and much more.
Data and its integrity matter. Just as air traffic controllers rely on accurate radar, good government relies on accurate data. However, Trump’s decision this month to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent a message to the federal government’s 2,000 agencies and 2.3 million civil servants that they must report what Trump wants to hear rather than what the public needs to know.
According to NBC News, “Across the federal government, President Donald Trump has been wielding his influence over data used by researchers, economists, and scientists, an effort that was playing out largely behind the scenes” until the BLS incident.
A new Brookings analysis details how the Trump administration has halted or manipulated data on food programs, public health, weather forecasting, hurricane tracking, monetary policy, the economy and the effectiveness of government programs. On global warming, Trump is erasing scientific data and removing the capacity to collect it in a campaign of “climate erasure.”
Trump has also sabotaged science, dismissing scientists whose specialties he doesn’t consider important and conclusions he doesn’t like. His administration has fired thousands of scientists and subject-matter experts from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies. As investigative journalist Lois Parshley points out, “The Trump administration’s assault on science feels eerily Soviet.”
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gas emissions are linked to global warming and that the EPA had the authority to regulate them. It also ruled that regulations must be based on sound science. Two years later, the EPA issued an “endangerment finding” that explained the scientific basis for concluding that global warming threatens public health and welfare. Now, Trump’s EPA intends to revoke the finding so that fossil-fuel companies can emit pollution without constraints.
To support the EPA and Trump’s dangerous dogma that climate change is nothing to worry about, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a specious report in July that contradicted the conclusions of international climate scientists as far back as the late 19th century. The Department of Energy also contradicts what millions of Americans are experiencing in their lives. The U.S. has already recorded 15 billion-dollar weather disasters in the first five months of this year.
Nearly half of Americans say they’ve experienced global warming’s effects, a third worry about climate change weekly, and 60 percent feel “anxious” about the lack of government response. But the Energy Department assures us that global warming isn’t so bad because carbon pollution helps plants grow.
The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a coalition of academic institutions and grassroots groups, has monitored more than 4,000 federal websites since Trump took office again. It found 879 changes on 639 government web pages, including information on climate, energy, governance, public health and safety, the economy, education, environmental justice, economic equity and the quality of America’s air and water.
During Trump’s first term, the group observed “patterns of information suppression” on websites that didn’t agree with his positions. In the first 100 days of Trump’s current term, it identified 70 percent more website changes than in 2017.
“A central political strategy for the first and the second Trump administration has been to mold public opinion through controlling the narrative about an issue,” its report states. “Information suppression is a core component of controlling the narrative, as it depresses factual information and creates an opening for falsehoods to thrive.”
Meanwhile, the administration is finessing Trump’s personal fitness. Trump has blasted the previous White House for covering up former President Joe Biden’s health problems, but the current White House appears to have done the same. It announced in April that Trump is in “excellent cognitive and physical health.” But now that Trump is showing clear signs of health problems, the White House acknowledged he has a condition whereby veins in his legs struggle to pump blood to his heart.
Speculation is growing that Trump suffers from more serious problems. His faltering motor skills, rambling and incoherent speeches, behavioral changes, and confusion about names and events have raised serious questions about his fitness. One observer writing in The Hill has questioned whether Trump suffers from “confabulation,” an early sign of dementia where a person believes his own lies.
The public deserves accurate and timely information about the president’s fitness, as well as the health of the economy, environment, citizenry and our future. Unfortunately, we cannot believe anything this president or his administration says.
Don’t blame us nattering nabobs for pointing it out — it’s our job to let you know.
William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.
