Getting rid of a government official, even a high-ranking one, who dares show fealty to any principle other than loyalty to the official ideology is exactly how they did it in the old USSR. In virtually every department, at multiple levels, there was always a “political officer,” an apparatchik. Their job was to make sure that people who worked in a given area of the government always followed the party line. In the United States, at least since the civil service reforms that began in the 1880s, our government is supposed to fill most of its positions based on merit and qualifications, not partisanship.
In particular in departments where the work being done is scientific in nature, political appointees are not supposed to interfere with the work of experts. And then came Trump.
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This is only the latest of far too many examples of the Sovietization of our government when it comes to science, including instances relating directly to climate change. But this one, as described by The New York Times, might just be the most egregious.
The Trump administration has recently removed the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s premier scientific agency, installed new political staff who have questioned accepted facts about climate change and imposed stricter controls on communications at the agency.
The moves threaten to stifle a major source of objective United States government information about climate change that underpins federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions and offer an indication of the direction the agency will take if President Trump wins re-election.
The events that preceded chief scientist Craig McLean’s removal read like something right out of a pulpy, Cold War-era novel’s depiction of Soviet bureaucracy. The firing unfolded after a clash between McLean and Erik Noble, a former policy adviser at the White House and a data analyst for the Trump campaign, who recently became chief of staff at the NOAA.
McLean emailed a few of the newly arrived NOAA officials—political appointees all—and simply requested that they acknowledge the scientific integrity policy that governs the agency’s work. Noble didn’t like that request very much, and clicked send on the following reply: “Respectfully, by what authority are you sending this to me?” McLean answered that, as the acting chief scientist of the NOAA, it was his job to make certain that the agency’s employees were adhering to the policy.
One morning later, Noble stripped him of that authority: “You no longer serve as the acting chief scientist for NOAA. Thank you for your service.” Fuck you very much. The only “policy” that Trump wants government employees to abide by is the policy of personal loyalty to him and him alone. Just ask James Comey.
By that point, Noble had already replaced McLean with a gentleman named Ryan Maue. He’s a meteorologist who formerly did research at the Cato Institute, a staunchly libertarian think tank from which he launched attacks on scientists who—relying on actual science—have sounded the alarm on climate change. Maue has also wandered into more directly partisan waters, falsely claiming that Joe Biden received questions from reporters in advance of a press conference. Sounds like someone who definitely will be 100% objective and non-political.
Noble also created a new position at NOAA, that of deputy assistant secretary. He filled it with David Legates, a geography and climatology professor who doesn’t quite believe human beings are exacerbating the warming of our planet. He’s also been affiliated with the right-wing, anti-climate change Heartland Institute, and is basically a stone-cold climate denier. Another guy who won’t be blinded with science and lose sight of politics.
The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote has, simply through his public statements and actions on COVID-19, made a mockery of science (hydroxychloroquine, anyone?). Given the deaths of over 227,000 Americans, the firing of another bureaucrat might not seem like such a big deal. The point is that a second term of this impeached president will bring more and more such actions, actions that do great harm to the health of actual people. At some point, there will be no one left in our government with any degree of responsibility who doesn’t solely serve Trump’s political interests—facts, truth, science, and the lives of Americans be damned.
That’s just one additional reason to get out there and work your heart out for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Democrats up and down the ballot.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas).