When truth becomes the enemy of the state
The foundations of our republic continue to tremble— from the deliberate assault on truth by those sworn to protect it. We witnessed another such moment this week when President Donald Trump, in a fit of authoritarian pique, dismissed Dr. Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the cardinal sin of doing her job.
This is not merely a personnel decision. It is a page torn from the playbook of every dictator who has ever sought to reshape reality to match his delusions. When Josef Stalin purged Soviet statisticians in the 1920s for reporting inconvenient truths about grain production and industrial output, he understood a fundamental principle of authoritarian rule: control the numbers, control the narrative. Control the narrative, control the people.
Trump's accusation that the BLS orchestrated a "scam" reveals a mind incapable of distinguishing between statistical methodology and political conspiracy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, established in 1884 and recognized worldwide as the gold standard for economic data collection, operates with the same rigorous protocols that have guided American economic policy for generations. Its monthly revisions—averaging 51,000 jobs since 2003—are not evidence of malfeasance but of scientific precision, the patient work of economists who understand that accuracy matters more than political convenience.
Yet in Trump's America, apparently, everyone is employed, happy and purchasing the cheapest groceries in history—an entire fiction that would make Pravda editors blush. The president demands not truth but compliance, not data but devotion. When reality fails to conform to his grandiose claims, reality must be fired and “the messenger killed”.
This newspaper has printed Mississippi's employment figures regularly, as have publications across these United States. Are we to understand that Trump intends to pressure each state to massage their data until it sings his praises? Will Mississippi's unemployment rate be whatever the president declares it to be? Will our grocery prices match his Twitter boasts rather than our consumers’ actual costs?
The implications extend far beyond hurt feelings in the Oval Office. The Federal Reserve relies on BLS data to set monetary policy that affects every American's mortgage rate and retirement savings. Businesses make hiring and investment decisions based on these numbers. The National Bureau of Economic Research uses this data to determine whether our economy is in recession. When we corrupt the wellspring of economic truth, we poison every decision that flows from it.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, hardly a partisan figure, warned last week that "good data helps not just the Fed, it helps the government, but also helps the private sector." He understands what Trump apparently cannot: that in a $27 trillion economy, accuracy is not optional. It is the difference between prosperity and chaos, between sound policy and dangerous guesswork.
Former BLS Commissioner William Beach put it plainly: "BLS is the finest statistical agency in the entire world, its numbers are trusted all over the world." That trust, built over 140 years of professional excellence, can be destroyed in a single presidential tantrum. Once lost, it may take decades to restore—if it can be restored at all.
This assault on statistical independence represents something more sinister than mere incompetence. It is the systematic dismantling of the institutional guardrails that separate democracy from autocracy. When leaders begin firing statisticians for statistical inconvenience, when they demand that reality conform to their political needs rather than conform their policies to reality, they have crossed a line that democratic societies ignore at their peril.
The people of Mississippi, like Americans everywhere, deserve leaders who respect truth even when it is inconvenient, who understand that governing requires grappling with facts rather than fabricating alternatives. The first lesson of many programs to help a person or a person to become a leader is to admit the problem and work to fix it not ignore the problem and fire the person who told you about it.
We deserve a president who sees public servants like Dr. McEntarfer as assets to be treasured, not obstacles to be removed. Truth tellers are difficult to find while blind followers are a dime a dozen in this world.
History will remember this week not for whatever spin emerges from the White House, but for the continued war on the truth by Trump. In that war, we must choose sides. The choice is not between Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal. It is between those who believe in the possibility of objective truth and those who would sacrifice it on the altar of personal ambition.
Hopefully, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will continue its work, as it has through 28 presidents before Trump. But something continues to be lost—the understanding that in America, at least, facts matter more than flattery, and truth serves no master but the people themselves.
That understanding, once the bedrock of our democracy, now hangs by the thinnest of threads because under Trump the truth varies week to week—Epstein list does not exist, the next week it exists and is phony and the next – who knows since Trump lies to create a reality too many accept as truth.
Editor’s note: Joseph McCain is the publisher of The Star-Herald. He has worked in the newspaper industry for over 30 years and may be reached at 662-803-5236 or 662-289-2251 or email news1@starherald.net.
