Monumental Disaster at the Department of the Interior

[panfluteman]

18. Add the Department of the Interior to the Long List of Federal Agencies

That the Trump administration has hollowed out. Another key government agency that was hollowed out real early on in the Trump administration was the State Department. This really irked me to no end, since my dear departed father was a career ambassador and foreign service officer. He was one of those language and regional experts who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations alike over his long career - and these are some of the most useful and helpful people that any government can employ. When Trump's former Secretary of State and Putin buddy Rex Tillerson fired all those career diplomats, he was only doing what Putin wanted, to weaken US diplomacy, moral leadership and "soft power" throughout the world. Heck, even "Mad Dog" Mattis said that the better our diplomacy and soft power, the less ammo and hard power is needed by the Defense Department. My dad was definitely rolling over in his grave.

And now the hollowing out and bastardization of the DOI has entered the spotlight. Trump's crusade against science, and even against a sensible and decent environment and quality of life for the citizens of our country is probably rooted in two things: business ties to the fossil fuel industry and being beholden to them; and 2) his political wooing of the Christian Right, which is anti-science and denying climate change and global warming. Heck - these rabid Jesus freaks sincerely believe that the sooner the planet is destroyed, the sooner Jesus will return. With Trump, there are two things that trump (pun intended) everything - money (fossil fuel interests) and politics (wooing the Christian Right and playing them for the suckers and hypocrites that they are).

It is very hard to understand, indeed mind-boggling at times, Trump's incredible rejection of and adversion to genuine knowledge and expertise of any kind - it's almost like he's strongly allergic to it. Is it just because he's a total narcissist as well as phenomenally ignorant himself, and surrounding himself with genuine experts would only put his own monumental stupidity into the spotlight by contrast and make him look bad?

In my mind, there seem to be three basic golden rules of governing effectively: 1) Put the country's interests ahead of your own. 2)The buck stops here - step up to the plate and take responsibility now! and 3) Follow the sage counsel of genuine experts and people in the know to supplement your own personal knowledge and experience where it is lacking. And Trump has failed miserably at all three.