It shouldn’t matter, it’s so damn stupid.

But it does. It matters most because Alabamans, especially those who rely on Trump for information and guidance, could be misled into thinking they have to prepare for a massive storm, spending time and money on something that just won’t happen. It matters because Trump contradicted the official missives of the agencies involved with false information, which I hear might actually be illegal. Fake news, anyone?

But it matters for other reasons too: for example, a president should never subject us to lies in support of his own ego. It’s hard to believe that for the last three years, this is exactly what we’ve been dealing with, because it’s not supposed to be this way. And yet here we are, and the man has structured an whole administration around him to affirm whatever he says.

And in this, the Trump era, that’s been status quo since, oh, Sean Spicer’s post inauguration press conference. But still, maybe not a great thing?

And in my ideal political world, an elected official should be able to admit to error: Oh, did I use a map from many days ago even though I stayed home from Poland to monitor Hurricane Dorian in real time? My bad, my apologies, here’s the real deal.

But no, Trump digs his heels in, and that is the other thing that drives me nuts: he can’t reverse direction, he can’t admit error, he can’t self correct. And that’s one of the most egregious aspects of this whole stupid sharpie-inspired debacle: he keeps going back to the well of “I’m right! I didn’t make a boo boo! No mistake, no mistake, you’re the mistake!”

If he only did this once in a while, if he would fess up to his errors, if he could self-deprecate, shrug, and move on, this wouldn’t be a national event. But it is, and it will continue to happen: his invented data, his invented poll numbers, his invented history, much of it a dangerous distraction.

And that is why this matters: it’s not a one-off, it’s a pattern. And it’s a dangerous pattern.

His exit from office cannot come soon enough for me.