Every few days, among my morass of emails, begging letters, and occasionally worthy newsletters, I get a little send-out called USAFacts. This email is a visual, simplified presentation of basic data about the economy and society, derived from US government sources. Sometimes it is interesting; often it's boring.
But not yesterday. Yesterday's email began with a careful social-scientific howl of horror in response to Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the crime of reporting true unemployment numbers.
At USAFacts, we rely heavily on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to help Americans understand what’s happening in the economy. The BLS provides crucial metrics on how many people are employed, what they’re earning, and much more.
President Trump ordered the firing of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday. This decision, which came after a lower-than-expected jobs report, has created fears of future politicization of one of the nation’s most critical economic data agencies.
The United States is the global standard for economic data because of the independence granted to statistical agencies. Politicizing that process is a serious departure from that tradition. This administration — and every administration — should protect this independence.
Data about jobs, prices, and wages belong to the American people. Your tax dollars fund this work. You deserve accurate, timely information that’s free from political interference. Undermining trust in official statistics threatens the integrity of the data that millions of everyday Americans depend on to understand our economy. ...
When this mild-mannered little non-profit denounces you, you've crossed a line.
"Facts deserve to be heard. Democracy is only successful when it is grounded in truth." says Steve Ballmer in this strange little video.
USAFacts is the project of one of our more benign domestic billionaires. Perhaps better than most, Steve Ballmer knows that facts matter. He made a little mistake, dismissing the Apple iPhone as an over priced gadget, that ended his tenure as Microsoft's chief executive. Though he is still believed to be the 8th richest man in the world. And though USAFacts may have a bit of a pro-business built-in bias, it's always intriguing.
Meanwhile Trump has gone full banana republic. He insists the truth is whatever he says it is and the Republican Party must repeat his claims. That is -- he's bonkers mad. And vicious. And dangerous. It's his world and we just live in it.
This moment's hot data analyst, G. Elliott Morris -- the Strength in Numbers guy -- sums up the meaning of contemporary Trumpism for those who deal in facts:
... I predict we will see a rise in third-party data providers, and an adjustment among media economic reporters in how they talk about government statistics.
... The MAGA prioritization of blind loyalty to Trump is simply not compatible with republican democracy. So the two will not coexist for long. Democracies require acceptance of pluralism, compromise, and reality. Trumpism offers intolerance, absolutism, and factlessness. The two are on a collision course, and unless more people of conscience in the GOP and beyond pull the emergency brake, we may careen past a point of no return.
It’s imperative that defenders of democracy — in both parties — wake up to this reality and reassert that no one is above facts, and country should come before party. Otherwise, as history warns us, the slide toward authoritarianism will only accelerate.
Dark times indeed.
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