In early October, when consulting the U.S. Forest Service’s website for our local national forest, Los Padres National Forest, I encountered this overt political message from our current president:
“The Radical Left Democrats shut down the government. This government website will be updated periodically during the funding lapse for mission critical functions. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”
When honest searchers want some pertinent information about hiking trails (or backcountry camping sites or fire safety data), they typically consult this basic LPNF information repository (or similar “home” websites for other forests).
Hikers and campers had to wade through political propaganda blaming “the other party” for the government’s shutdown for 43 days. Those prospective hikers — my “on the trail” colleagues — eager for topographic information might be MAGA-leaning or progressive lefties. I think of guru Franko, wild Peter, Jared, Mr. C, Bad Bill, Carrie — all characters in my columns who often need information on this federal LPNF website.
Whoever they are and wherever they stand politically, they simply want essential hiking information in order to join active Americans questing out into nature. So many of us desperately need to slip away from digital domination and the rampant algorithms, from divisive politicizing and outright disinformation.
Just glance at the screenshot of Los Padres National Forest’s humble website shown during the shutdown. (If you look it up now, this is what you see.) As an active outdoor columnist with articles dating back to 2012, I’ve frequently recommended that readers consult this important government resource. Falling under the Department of Agriculture (a mistake), the U.S. Forest Service should protect its 190 million acres divided into 184 national forests.
This administration has been trying to allow roads and development into the 59 million federal acres deemed “roadless” and is now attempting to eliminate the crucial Public Lands Rule about Bureau of Land Management lands. This policy places conservation on an equal footing with mining/drilling/grazing across 245 million acres.
For those who dismiss these falsehoods as merely pathetic jibes and childish agit-prop — they’re wrong and dangerously misguided in their insouciance. These slanders and political statements impact everyone, and especially when they’ve percolated down to granular levels such as we see even at the head of a federal website about an obscure national forest in California.
A casual overview of some of the 184 national forest home websites revealed that every single one had this demeaning political “header” — certainly a violation of the Hatch Act. The 1939 Hatch Act forbids political activity while on duty or in a federal office or using federal property.
In his essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell identified how propaganda’s power lies not simply in overt lies — e.g., the canard that we “No Kings demonstrators” are “terrorists” — but also by everyday granular distortions: exactly what we read at the top of LPNF’s home website and atop almost all 184 national forest home websites.
Master liar Joseph Goebbels’ infamous dictum — “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” — has become a law of propaganda, and we had to read these repetitions on compliant national Forest Service home websites for 43 days. Yet, they did not appear atop National Park Service websites.
While I congratulate Dr. Kimberly Winter, LPNF head supervisor, for quickly getting rid of the embarrassing propaganda on her forest’s website, I would ask her how some of the national parks websites omitted the propaganda header during the shutdown? They managed to resist breaking the Hatch Act by not bending the knee to this president while you and the other 183 forest supervisors bent the knee to his illegal political commands?
This can be termed anticipatory obedience to an authoritarian leader.
