All those hundreds of Twitter jokes about “Trump’s Sharpie” turn out to be more true than many people suspected. Because it wasn’t some nameless White House staffer who drew an amateurish extension onto a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map using a black marker—Trump did it himself. And when it comes to Trump’s claim that the East Coast hurricane was headed for Alabama, no matter what the Weather Service says, he just cannot let it go.
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The whole situation continues to be ridiculous on the one hand: a mangled list of states, a map “enhanced” with all the skill of a back-alley collagen injection, and a continuous rain of tweets showing that Trump would rather prove himself ridiculous than admit to the slightest mistake. On the other hand, it’s exactly that last point that makes the situation serious. Trump isn’t moaning on about the hurricane because it distracts from the fact that he’s holding children in cages. He’s doing both things for the same reason—because he feels privileged to define reality and morality as it pleases him, and freedom to express his anger at the slightest sign that someone disagrees.
According to The Washington Post, Trump has now provided nine tweets and five maps to justify his claim that Alabama was threatened by the hurricane. Trump has also turned his mistake into something he blames on his most consistent scapegoat, the “fake news.” But it wasn’t anyone in the media who pointed out that Trump was wrong; it was the National Weather Service. That Weather Service employee didn’t post a tweet noting that Alabama wasn’t in danger to thwart Trump—they did so because it’s important that the public get accurate information, especially in emergency circumstances.
But Trump isn’t concerned about accuracy. Or an emergency. He’s continued to insist that there was a “95% chance” of damage in Alabama, even while showing a map that demonstrates that—in the very worst possibility—one corner of that state had a 5% chance of seeing winds that fell well short of hurricane strength. Even the map that Trump is waving at the cameras shows that Alabama was never in danger. To produce that map, Trump’s team shuffled through dozens of notifications concerning Dorian, seizing on a map from more than three days before he made his Alabama-tweet to obtain one that still doesn’t show what he claims.
In defense of his claim that he was right about Alabama, Trump is demonstrating that 1) he can’t read the clear indicators on the map he’s holding up, and 2) he was paying so little attention that he was issuing warnings on information that was several days out of date. And of course, he also lied.
None of that matters to Trump, or to Trump’s defenders, for whom such nuances as “that makes no sense” are not allowed. A line on a map touched Alabama—and touched it big time when aided by a Sharpie-applied “boost.” Therefore Donald Trump was completely right, everyone else is wrong, and anyone pointing out the idiocy is “fake news.”
Of course, the line on the map was drawn by Trump. When he was asked if the weather map had been altered, Trump said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” But he did know. He did the altering.
And not listed among the Post’s count of Trump’s SharpieGate cover-up efforts was that on Thursday, Trump forced a rear admiral to march out in front of the White House and continue the lie. Homeland Security adviser Peter Brown read from a statement to say, “While speaking to the press on Sunday, Sept. 1, the President addressed Hurricane Dorian and its potential impact on multiple states, including Alabama. The president’s comments were based on that morning’s Hurricane Dorian briefing, which included the possibility of tropical storm force winds in southeastern Alabama."
Except it didn’t. The image below shows the actual NOAA / NHC forecast from 5:00 AM Sept. 1.
Forecast at time Trump said Alabama was in danger.
Trump could have looked at the maps for the day before, or the day before that, and they would have indicated much the same. It’s a cinch that no one stood in the White House on Sept. 1 and told Trump he needed to worry about Alabama.
Trump’s mistake was simple. The Sharpie is ridiculous. But the lengths to which Trump is willing to go in order to prove himself “right” aren’t silly. They’re as dangerous as any storm.
