The president’s garbled Moon Tweet actually made sense if you are willing to do all the work for Trump of making it intelligible.
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019
So, let me deconstruct it.
- Trump saw Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business channel mention that we went to moon fifty years ago so it doesn’t seem like such a great ambition to go back to the moon again. This made him defensive.
- He thought to himself that NASA should do a better job communicating so that his presidency doesn’t get criticized on Fox Business.
- He grabbed the Twitter machine.
- He began with a suspect if/then statement. If we’re spending money, we should not be talking in one way but should be talking in another way. His point is that people will be more supportive of space investment if NASA emphasizes something new rather than a repeat of something old. It’s unclear how NASA can avoid talking about the Moon mission, however, since they are currently working on the Moon mission.
- Trump then echoed the point he had heard on Fox Business about going to the Moon fifty years ago. This is his way of providing context for his Tweet. In his world, everyone is watching Fox Business all the time and instantly understands the reference.
- To demonstrate the kind of messaging he thinks NASA should use, he said that the Moon is a part of Mars, which made everyone’s head explode. What he meant was that the Moon space station is a preliminary step in the effort to go to Mars. This happens to be true.
- This wasn’t sufficient, however. To further justify spending on space exploration, he wanted to emphasize that there is a national security component: “Defense and Science!” We’re militarizing space, bitches.
This ridiculous episode demonstrates many flaws in Trump as a person and a president. First, he spends way too much time watching television when he should be doing his job. Second, he spends too much time responding to what he sees on television in a knee-jerk way. Third, he tries to communicate policy and strategy to departments in his administration through Twitter messages rather than by holding meetings or directing subordinates to issue instructions directly to the departments. Fourth, his limited understanding of policy combined with his disordered way of reasoning results in capricious decisions and unclear directives. Sometimes, although not in this case, he will actually contradict his own policies or whimsically reverse decisions he’s already made. Fifth, he wants to militarize space.
So, no, Trump isn’t under the misimpression that the Moon is actually a part of Mars. He understands that the Moon space station will be used to facilitate a later mission to Mars. He wants NASA to emphasize this point in order to make the public more supportive of spending on space exploration. But rather than invest the time it would take to send this directive to NASA’s communications team, he writes a poorly drafted tweet that is only comprehensible to people who have been watching the same Fox Business segment that he has been watching.
In his mind, this solves the problem. He won’t follow up to see that his instruction is implemented because he doesn’t have the attention span to maintain that kind of focus. In any case, his message was as much for Neil Cavuto as it was for NASA. Thirty seconds later, he was looking for some other slight he could respond to.
It’s not hard to imagine the problems that could result from this style of governance. This is what we mean when we say the man is unfit for office.
Ah, I now see it. He is responding to Cavuto DIRECTLY, as though he is being interviewed on the phone! He’s entering a conversation in the middle.
God, we are so screwed.
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Exactly. He does this all the time. It’s just usually a little easier to understand what he’s talking about.