| | | Would you prefer Lief Erikson Day, or maybe Knights Templar Day?
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This Fourth of July, Consider Trump’s Lobster Fib
By Louis Menand
July 4, 2020
full article at newyorker.com
excerpt:
Today is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain, and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity. The falsehoods never stop. No occasion is too minor. “Pres. Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine. Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your ‘lobstering’ and fishing! Make lots of money!” So tweeted the President on June 24th.
As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported, the tweet is a lobster fib. Not that President Obama needs to get credit for it—climate change, driving the lobsters north, was probably the reason—but, in 2016, the last year of the Obama Administration, the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history, a hundred and thirty-two million pounds. Since then, it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds, largely because of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China, which caused certain American agricultural exports, including lobsters, to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff. China is not in a trade war with Canada, however, and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market. Over all, the value of the fishing catch in Maine, all species included, has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 (also a record) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019.
If lobstering is (or may be) “back,” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the CARES Act—the pandemic bailout—to the lobster industry, which had previously been left off the list of most-favored businesses. Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way. The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins. Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need. She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote, and then ends up voting, most of the time, with her party. The Republicans want to keep her in office. As always, the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically. How else would it operate? It has no other principles to guide it.
Lobster fishing is a niche industry. About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters. And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie, more in the braggadocio category. But why insist on lying? Why lie even when the truth—“We looked strongly into extending the CARES Act to Maine’s beautiful lobstermen!”—does the job perfectly well?
continues at the link |
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