Sure, this is probably the least important thing imaginable about Donald Trump, especially right at the moment. The president has been connected with two actual honest-to-god felonies, he’s got an investigation drawing ever closer to delivering a report and possible charges, the opposition party is hotly tipped to sweep the upcoming midterm elections and the Trump approval rating has never been lower.
Oh yeah, and then there’s the new book Fear by investigative journalist Bob Woodward, filled with anonymous but on the record interviews with current and former staff, none of which say “Trump is a smart, capable leader that makes good decisions”.
TREASON?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018
And that was before the so-called “resistance” letter in the New York Times, the author of which Trump is bellowing must be brought before him and charged with treason.
Thus far no-one’s been able to work out who the author is, and let’s be honest: it doesn’t say great things about your leadership abilities if one of your colleagues writes an anonymous piece about how much you suck and days later you still can’t identify which of the hundreds of people with whom you work is responsible.
So against that backdrop the news that Trump demanded photos of his inauguration be doctored to look less embarrassing when compared with the vast turnout for the swearing in of Barack Obama is hardly big news – but for many of us at the time those photo comparisons and the furious denials they inspired from the new president was the first time became clear just how delusional he is.
Comparing the crowds at Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations https://t.co/U4dIVzCKbH pic.twitter.com/zf8hxVDMpO
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 20, 2017
The Guardian filed a Freedom of Information request with the Department of the Interior in 2017 and – well, let’s let them tell it.
The records detail a scramble within the National Park Service (NPS) on 21 January 2017 after an early-morning phone call between Trump and the acting NPS director, Michael Reynolds. They also state that Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary, called NPS officials repeatedly that day in pursuit of the more flattering photographs.”
After more requests to the photographer for shots which “accurately reflected the crowd size”, or at least as the White House insisted the crowd size, “He said he edited the inauguration photographs to make them look more symmetrical by cropping out the sky and cropping out the bottom where the crowd ended… He said he did so to show that there had been more of a crowd.”
So yes, it’s a tiny thing. But y’know, it was an early indication of what was to come.