Trump often uses Scandinavian examples for comparison to America because he thinks he knows things, whether it’s race, society, or forests.
The problem is that Trump is usually wrong, and is willing to compound the lie to reinforce his false claims.
Considering he wants to build a wall to keep migrants out and is willing to send the US Army to stop them, perhaps Trump will lobby to move California several thousand miles north.
The incendiary risk is therefore much lower for most of the year in Finland than in California, where high temperatures, dry air and frequent wind make wildfires far more likely.
“It’s not a good comparison,” Mr. Ruuska said. “We have a half-meter of snow during winter, so it’s quite natural that we don’t have any fires over the winter, and our autumn is quite wet.”
The trees aren’t the same.
Finnish forests are mainly filled with tall boreal trees — pine, spruce and birch — whereas much of Californian vegetation consists of lower-lying chaparral shrub land and small trees, which are more prone to catching fire.
“The whole comparison is a bit wild,” said Mr. Lindberg, who suggested that it would be better to study methods in Mediterranean Europe, where forests are more like those in California.
[...]
President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said, in an interview published Sunday in a Finnish newspaper, that in a brief conversation in Paris on Nov. 11, he had explained the virtues of Finnish forest management to Mr. Trump. But he didn’t recall mentioning raking.
This all raises how unamerican Trump the authoritarian is, when he uses such examples, aside from averaging those 4 to 6 lies per day.
“-70% of CA land is federally owned and current fires are mostly on federal land.”
There are strategic reasons, perhaps, to emphasize Trump’s un-Americanness. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and liberty in general are cherished US values in theory, even if they aren’t always honored in fact. Comparing Trump to Mussolini, for example, is a forceful way to emphasize his betrayal of Constitutional ideals. Trump’s brazen lies and his open contempt for freedom of speech contrast with American traditions—it’s worth underlining that.
But Trump’s totalitarian impulses also mirror shameful events in American history. And his particular brand of authoritarianism will likely build on precedents set by Americans like John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Jackson, and Jefferson Davis.
qz.com/...
The next thing we’ll see is a sauna or hot-tub endorsement scam.
President Trump claims he “did not know” about acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s previous criticisms of the ongoing Russia investigation but has no problem with them now because he “happened to be right.”
Speaking to Chris Matthews Wallace in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday morning, Trump said that Whitaker’s statements—in which he called for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to be defunded or face restrictions—did not have “any effect” on his decision to appoint him Mueller's new boss. “I did not know he took views on Mueller’s investigation as such,” Trump said, but “what do you do when a person’s right?”
Trump’s comments come amid concerns that his decision to appoint Whitaker, a loyalist who has repeatedly echoed the president’s own comments about the Russia investigation being a hoax, could be an attempt to end the probe.