In back-to-back tweets yesterday, Vox's Aaron Rupar illuminated his relative lack of knowledge relating to modern farming and forest management while attempting to blast President Donald J. Trump on those topics.
First, Rupar stated it was "beyond parody" that Fox Business cut away from President Trump's speech in Iowa "right after he laments, bizarrely, that tractors can't hook up to the internet."
Beyond parody -- Fox Business cuts away from Trump's speech right after he laments, bizarrely, that tractors can't hook up to the internet pic.twitter.com/hbYoYm2UgO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 11, 2019
As pointed out by the Washington Examiner's Jerry Dunleavy, broadband and internet access is actually a very important topic for farmers and as technology advances, farm tools like tractors increasingly rely on wifi.
This is only bizarre if you don’t know literally anything about this country’s serious dearth of reliable high-speed rural broadband as well as the way modern farming increasingly makes use of internet connectivity in tons of different equipment like, you guessed it, tractors. https://t.co/5VOSqScfjU
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) June 12, 2019
Indeed, even a simple search on Youtube reveals why farmers need better internet access for their tractors.
Next, Rupar asserted that Trump was incorrect related to the importance of forest fire management.
"Trump claims his widely mocked comments about how cause of wildfires in CA is poor forest management, not climate change, have been proven correct. (They haven't)," the Vox writer said.
Trump claims his widely mocked comments about how cause of wildfires in CA is poor forest management, not climate change, have been proven correct. (They haven't)
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 11, 2019
"All of the sudden about 4 weeks after [I said it] they learned I was right, and now they are managing the forest." pic.twitter.com/akq0pD7Xlb
In November of 2018, President Trump received backlash from leftists after he said that devastating California forest fires were caused in part by horrible forest mismanagement. He also said simple activities, like cleaning the forest floor, could have helped prevent the spread of fires.
However, the president was right. In fact, a state government oversight commission said in February 2018 that "transformational culture change in its forest management practices" was needed in California. The report was sent by the Little Hoover Commission, "an independent state oversight agency created in 1962" whose "mission is to investigate state government operations and policy, and – through reports and legislative proposals – make recommendations to the Governor and Legislature."
During its review, the Commission found that "California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire." Furthermore, it "found commitment to long-lasting forest management changes at the highest levels of government, but that support for those changes needs to spread down not just through the state’s massive bureaucracy and law- and policymaking apparatuses, but among the general public as well."
"Central to these efforts must be a statewide public education campaign to help Californians understand why healthy forests matter to them, and elicit buy-in for the much-needed forest treatments," the commission said regarding what can change.
Now, it is unknown if any California leaders called Trump and credited him for his claims on how to prevent forest fires. Gov. Newsom says he did not. His comments on better management were not original ideas but, Trump's suggestion that increased care of the land would lead to better safety was accurate.
Nonetheless, members of the media latch on to anything they can, reality be damned, in order to criticize the current president.
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