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 Commissioner, 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, and calls for another Biden-appointed Fed governor to resign over unconfirmed allegations by one of his lackeys, 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 if 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.
UPDATE
A similar scenario is playing out as regards the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Trump and the MAGA Republicans are all-in with oil and gas, and they take any criticism of the industry as a personal affront. So, when Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, talks about demand for oil peaking by the end of the decade, that is a red rag to a bullish Donald Trump.
Rather than arguing sensibly and making the case for the continued relevance of oil and gas, Trump and his oh-so-loyal energy secretary Chris Wright respond by calling Birol's considered opinion "nonsensical" and "politicized", and threatening to withdraw funding from the global organization if it doesn't change the way it operates. (The USA provides about 14% of the agency's funding.)
Criticism, even constructive debate, is anathema to the Trump administration. If someone, even a globally-respected independent organization, does not agree with their agenda, they are branded as extremists and muckrakers, and closed down.
You can do that when you're the most powerful country in the world. Trump was not the one that made America great, and he seems to be doing his level best to wreck it, but he is more than happy to use that position to his own political advantage.
UPDATE UPDATE
And, just a few days later, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio slapped sanctions on four members of the International Criminal Court because he considers some of their decisions to be anti-US or anti-Israel. He also threatened to pull essential American funding from the Court.
Is this the way America is to act now, abusing its power and influence with impunity? If someone does not toe their political line, if they do not meet the Trump administration's increasingly radical and reactionary view of how the world should work, then they get closed down, ridiculed, defunded, sacked, sanctioned.
Much of it is sabre-rattling and grandstanding, because Trump and his henchmen do not actually have the legally authority to remove individuals from the Federal Reserve and other agencies. But some of it, including withdrawing funding from international agencies, is all too clearly within their purview.
You can see the way this is going. It's probably only a matter of time before they resort to more drastically measures, maybe along the lines of Vladimir Putin's favourite remedy: poisoning and assassination.
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