Trump Wants to Gaslight Us About His Economic Failures
The "Wall Street Journal" seems to be carrying the president's water.
On Friday, “The Wall Street Journal” argued that President Donald Trump’s tariffs haven’t boosted inflation. Its opening sentence reiterated this claim, insisting that “the highest tariffs in a century haven’t caused inflation is surge.”
I am reminded of a famous observation by a different president, Abraham Lincoln:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
Like Joe Biden before him, Trump is a president who thinks that if he tells people they aren’t suffering, that act can itself gaslight them into believing that to be true. That is why he fired a statistician who provided accurate information about rising unemployment, which, like rising prices, has been both documented and linked to the tariffs. No doubt, it is why “The Wall Street Journal” — which is certainly carrying Trump’s water, although it is unclear whether this is under direct influence — keeps insisting that the economy is fine.
I predict that this will spectacularly fail.
To understand why, I can start by citing Robert Shapiro, a chief economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and chairman of the consulting firm Sonecon.
“A decade ago, the Argentine government under Cristina Fernández (widow of Kirchner, the autocrat who preceded her) fired the head of the agency tracking inflation, and then she put our fake numbers — it was running around 20% at the time," Robert J. Shapiro, Chairman at Sonecon, told Democracy at Work last week. "It backfired and the economy sank so much that even after rigging the next election, she lost.” When Chinese dictator Xi Jinping attempted a similar move by putting out fake numbers during the SARS outbreak, China “lost the confidence of large foreign investors, and China’s economy suffered for several years."
In short, observers know when economic numbers are being tampered with and will certainly react accordingly, even when dealing with a previously stable economy (comparatively speaking) like America’s.
"There is no historical precedent of a US president firing the head of one of our statistical agencies (BLS, BEA, Census) and putting out fake numbers,” Shapiro said. “If Trump appoints a political hack to head BLS, the markets will certainly react negatively. Based on my experience overseeing the BEA and Census Bureau as Clinton’s Under Secretary of Commerce, our saving grace is that the professional statisticians at those agencies and at BLS would blow the whistle, and that private surveys independently track the basic elements of GDP and inflation."
Shapiro’s observation offers useful historical and geopolitical context, but I’d argue one doesn’t need to be an experienced economist to know these things. I will be bold enough to say that it’s common sense that Trump’s plans will fail.
Why? Simply put, you can’t fool people into ignoring their own poverty.
It is one thing to denounce Trump for atrocities that seem abstract, like undermining democracy by refusing to concede lost elections and imposing a far-right international and social agenda. But when people notice that the goods and services they need and want are too expensive, when they lose their jobs because their employers cannot afford to keep them, and when they see that the people around them are similarly struggling, they’ll notice.
They’ll protest.
They’ll blame Trump.
I predict all of the chicanery in the world won’t save him this time. It isn’t because his supporters will see the light and condemn him for the things he has done that hurt millions of others. It is because, once his policies undeniably and materially harm themselves, enough of Trump’s supporters will abandon him that no amount of spin will be able to spare his movement from the political consequences.
Back Seat Socialism
Column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.