Five days into his Presidency, Donald Trump has made enemies. But on day one he made a critical error by pissing off the US National Parks Services. For a man obsessed with Twitter and his public image, the humble federal agency might become his most dogged opponent.
Update: a new twitter account has been set up, “Unofficial feed of Badlands NP.. Protecting rugged scenery, fossil beds, 244,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie & wildlife from two-bit cheetoh-hued despots.” Follow them at @BadHombreNPS.
Last week, the NPS Twitter account retweeted some anti-Trump sentiments. All Department of Interior bureaus were told to “immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts” by President Trump, though use of those accounts was eventually restored after a public apology.
Today, Badlands National Park took to Twitter, seemingly to decry Trump’s irresponsible and counterfactual stance on climate change, by quoting from the “Climate Change Facts” section of the National Wildlife Federation’s website. A few moments later the account tweeted again, but this time seemingly from the heart.
The Badlands National Park tweets about climate change — a real thing that is really happening — have since disappeared, though they managed to fire one more off before someone pulled the plug on them. Who could have predicted that?
Below is a screengrab of all four tweets. We’ve reached out to Badlands for comment on why objectively true statements largely quoted from another agency are being deleted, although I think we already know the reason.
Climate change isn’t up for debate, but there have been a lot of already-answered questions revisited lately, like, “Is the US President really going to lie right to our faces every damn day for the next four years?” (Yes.)
An intern is probably getting fired for these tweets, but seeing has how Trump froze EPA grants today and is intent on clamping down dissent starting at the federal level, every little bit of resistance helps.