It's started. While everyone was discussing Trump's delusional voter fraud claims, the White House put a chokehold on the truth, silencing federal agencies from communicating both with Congress and the public.
The fruits of that labor were seen Tuesday when the Badlands National Park Service tweeted out a little too much truth about climate science. Those tweets were promptly deleted, according to NPR reporter Nathan Rott.
The tweet scrubbing was an ominous sign for future communications from federal agencies. In response, DNC press secretary Adrienne Watson issued a statement saying simply, “Vladimir Putin would be proud.” That sentiment was echoed by former employees of some federal agencies.
“It’s a dark time right now,” said Liz Purchia, who headed EPA’s public affairs office during the Obama administration. “People are nervous and they are scared about what they can and can’t do. They don’t want to get in trouble and they want to do the right thing.
“It’s ironic that Trump based his entire campaign on Twitter and social media and now he’s preventing the staff that work from him from communicating with the public,” Purchia added.
Naturally, some of this was brought on by Trump’s exceedingly fragile ego, which is now the driver of our national agenda. New York Magazine writes:
Last week, the main Twitter account of the National Park Service was temporarily asked to stop posting following the retweeting of two tweets — one about the lack of crowds at the inauguration and one about LGBTQ and Civil Rights pages vanishing from the White House website — that didn’t exactly make the new administration look good. According to a letter obtained by Gizmodo, all National Park Service employees received an email informing them “we have received direction from the Department through [the Washington Support Office] that directs all [Department of Interior] bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.”
Between the GOP’s climate deniers and old stumpy thumbs in chief, we’re really screwed.