King Canute Trump
Mediate report:
President Donald Trump’s governance has always leaned more on narrative than fact. But his decision to fire Dr. Erika McEntarfer—the career economist leading the Bureau of Labor Statistics—after the release of a disappointing July jobs report is something altogether different.
It’s a direct attack on the very idea of nonpartisan government data. And it carries dangerous echoes of despotic regimes that punished truth-tellers for speaking plainly.
In a Friday post on Truth Social, Trump accused McEntarfer, a Biden-era appointee, of “faking the job numbers,” and said he had “terminated her effective immediately.” During a brief gaggle with reporters that evening, Trump offered no evidence to support his claim, dodging follow-ups and instead conjuring vague allusions to what his base will clearly read as deep state manipulation.
Trump may have some great policies, but this is a good reminder of how psychologically flawed he is. He gets job numbers he doesn’t like, so he sacks the messenger. If the facts interfere with his opinion, he tries to change the facts.
One of the most basic functions of government is that you should be able to trust their data. With China, you have to take government data with suspicion, as the autocratic government will punish people for bad news. If the US goes down this path, it will mean that businesses, banks, markets etc will all be less certain about the state of the US economy, which will in turn weaken the economy. It is an own goal.
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