We are by now well used to Donald Trump using bully tactics to get what he wants. But recently he is starting to stray into dictator tactics, and that's a worrying development.
His latest enormity is to sack Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency responsible for producing national employment reports as well as consumer and producer price data.
The Commisioner, the effective head of the agency, is actually a political appointee (Ms. McEntarfer was appointed in January 2024 after an 86-8 Senate vote), even though the agency as a whole is considered independent, and so technically Trump does have the power to hire and fire her. But this action, one of many on a slippery slope towards authoritarianism, has really set alarm bells ringing.
Trump fired Entarfer in a fit of pique after she announced weaker than expected jobs data, and also revised downwards employment figures for May and June after new data came to light. McEntarfer, of course claims she was just doing her job - such revisions are common occurrences, and a poor employment report was not unexpected given Trump's tariff moves - but Trump says she "RIGGED" the jobs figures "to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad". Furthermore, in case you didn't get the message, "The Economy is BOOMING under TRUMP".
As with Trump's repeated threats to fire Jerome Powell, chair of the US Federal Reserve, these ad hominem attacks and threats to shoot the messenger when the message does not suit him, can only lead to a further deterioration in public trust in a system already seriously destabilized by Trump's words and actions.
And of this behaviour seems familiar, you may be thinking of Josef Stalin, who had a penchant for this kind of thing, or the Communist Party of China in its heyday, or Argentina in 2013, or Greece in 2010. It never ends well.
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