Trump Bans CDC From Using 7 Words Including 'Fetus' And 'Transgender'
Apparently these words don’t fit the Trump administration’s priorities
In an alarming and bizarre move, the Trump administration has directed policy officials at the Centers for Disease Control to avoid using a collection of “controversial” words in all documentation pertaining to next year’s budget.
The words apparently don’t mesh well with the administration’s goals.
This list of forbidden words, according to the Washington Post, includes “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based,” all of which apparently don’t play a part in the administration’s financial plans for the country.
The decision to prevent certain words from being mentioned follows a pattern of behavior that has been growing since Trump took office, in which web pages referencing such topics as diverse (whoops, is that banned?) as climate change and LGBT issues have been removed from government websites, signaling supporters that the President has little time for such issues.
Bottom line: Trump seems to ignore the issues he doesn’t want to confront, and attacks anything and everything associated with topics that reflect negatively on him.
CDC officials could not think of another time when particular words were banned from use, and they were “incredulous,” according to one analyst. “It was very much, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding?’…In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint,” the analyst said.
Judging by chatter on the Washington Post‘s Facebook post, CDC officials aren’t the only ones taken aback by this alarming move.
The CDC is preparing budget materials pertaining to the 2019 budget for its partners and for Congress to review, and the budget itself is expected to be released in February. Senior administration officials did not say why the words were banned.
If the Trump administration’s priorities weren’t already clear after their tumultuous first year, this move to strike words they don’t like from their documentation detailing their future plans should make it obvious.
It may seem like a small thing, but it’s utterly chilling. Republicans are supposedly about less government control in our lives, but now they’re controlling the usage of particular terminology that doesn’t fit their agenda.
Controlling language is the kind of tactic fascist governments use to promote their agenda and keep the population in line. If Trump and his cronies are willing to take that step, where will they stop?
