No. of Recommendations: 15
Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics reminded Claire Berlinski of Joseph Stalin’s “war on statistical reality” in the 1930s.
If the data suggested unwelcome news—famines, plummeting grain yields, industrial failures—Stalin blamed the statisticians for “wrecking,” “sabotage,” or “bourgeois pessimism.” Valerian Osinsky, for example, head of the Central Statistical Directorate, was fired for reporting low crop yields that contradicted the projections in the Five-Year Plan.
And, indeed, there was also a rather strong whiff of banana republicanism (think Argentina) in Trump’s purge of statisticians who might deliver unwelcome news.
His impulsive move underlined how far he’s willing to go to bend the entire federal bureaucracy — and reality — to his will. So yesterday marked the last time that we will see a non-Trumpified report on jobs. And this is where the stupidity comes in.
Despite his Sun King pretensions and Uber Mensch bravado, Trump’s reckless firing of the BLS head reeked of panic. And from panic, folly flows like a river.
National Review’s Philip Klein notes that Trump’s “baseless charges will help undermine public confidence in yet another American institution, which will also create less certainty for investors.”
But it’s also hard to see how this helps Trump.
If Trump installs somebody at BLS who produces great numbers, anybody who isn’t already one of his supporters will dismiss them and assume that the appointee was producing the positive data to keep the boss happy.
And they would not be wrong, would they?
Charlie Sykes
