Doug's Darkworld

OK, this story is shocking to me. And boy, Trump has set the bar really high, but he managed to outdo himself once again. Sharpiegate.

Let’s review. On Sunday Trump tweeted that Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, will be “Hit harder than expected” by hurricane Dorian. Very shortly afterwards the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, tweeted in response: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.” So … Trump made a mistake, no big deal, we’ve all done similar. Admit you erred, move on. Right?

That’s not what happened. Trump basically doubled down several times in the days that followed, insisting that early projections had put Alabama in Dorian’s path. Long story short, he was refuted at every turn, there were never any projections that Dorian would affect Alabama. Warnings were issued for numerous cities on the East Coast up to Canada, but none in Alabama. Trump was simply mistaken.

On Wednesday, Trump showed the projected path of Dorian on a chart, claimed it showed Dorian affecting Alabama. And ranted about how the “fake news” owed him an apology! So, was Trump right after all? The astute reader might notice a problem with Trump’s “proof.” Hell, a vegetable or an alert mineral might see the problem. The line that included Alabama appears to have been drawn with a sharpie! I mean, the original of this projection is publically available, and the black loop including Alabama is conspicuously absent. It’s not even in the same league as a good photoshop, it’s so obviously doctored as to be pathetic.

So the facts of the case aren’t in dispute in any reasonable way. Trump tweeted that Alabama was in danger at a point when it wasn’t. Even if very early projections included Alabama, not relevant. Trump was in error when he tweeted Alabama was in danger, and instead of admitting his mistake and apologizing to the people of Alabama for unduly alarming them, he doubled down on his error. Facts matter.

The question then is what to make of this. This is not adult behaviour, an adult would have admitted their mistake. This is like a disturbed child trying to lie their way out of a situation where they were caught red handed. Or a case of extreme narcissism, Trump said it, so it must be true. I am curious what a good psychologist makes of this. Are any of my readers so skilled? Enquiring minds want to know.

I suppose it’s possible Trump is just trolling somehow, but even that doesn’t really make sense. No purpose is served by it. The whole idea that Trump is some sort of genius hiding his smarts under an endless parade of saying dumb things is pretty hard to swallow at this point. Especially since he’s yet to say or do anything particularly brilliant. And this doesn’t even fall under the rubric of “trying to look dumb.” This is “trying to look like a disturbed child or a pathological liar.” How does that make America great?

So I see no way to parse this that isn’t, well, scary. What’s going to happen when Trump makes a mistake that has repercussions if not corrected? I now dread the idea of him having to deal with any sort of major crisis. I suppose there’s some hope in that potential rivals are going to tread carefully because Trump is unpredictable. Still, I’d rather have people respect us because we have a competent leader, not because we have a petulant child with nuclear weapons in the Oval Office. And even if people like Russia and China are treading carefully, there’s a lot of Mikheil Saakashvilis, Saddam Husseins, and Osama Bin Ladens out there. Here’s to hoping the rest of Trump’s presidency remains calm and doctored weather maps are the worst of the series.

On the plus side, Sharpiegate has certainly inspired a lot of memes. Well, sort of a plus I guess. OK, not really a plus, since most of them are mean spirited, and no matter how amusing to some, I don’t see that as helping. In any event, moving right along, I’ve reached a personal watershed with Sharpiegate. This shows Trump really is unfit for office. He either engendered the infantile deception himself, or worse, fell for it when some aide presented it to him. Is there any other interpretation that doesn’t require layers of special pleading? If there is, I can’t think of it. Any readers that want to explain Sharpiegate away are welcome to comment.

Alternatively, if anyone has a recipe for simple whole wheat ‘hamburger buns,’ I could really use that. The Interwebs failed me in this. There’s only 18 hours in a day at best, and I could easily triple that and still keep busy. This is why I look forward to eventually uploading myself. At electronic speeds, I’ll get thousands of hours a day at least. I bet I would still need sleep though. There’s a great scifi movie idea, AIs always go insane until it’s discovered that like a human consciousness, an AI consciousness needs to sleep. Maybe sleep is an integral component to consciousness. I expect royalties and a credit line if anyone uses it. ;)

I wonder what bugs think too. I’m hopeless. Have a great weekend everyone.

Copyright © 2019 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Trump’s doctored map. Credit: Facebook meme? Claiming Fair Use since it’s an historically important image, it’s not being used for profit, and there is no better image for illustrating the event.)