Donald the Great Cuts the Gordian Knot

President Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hours after the agency released a jobs report that included substantial downward revisions for May and June, slashing a combined 258,000 jobs from prior estimates (May revised to 19,000 from 125,000, and June to 14,000 from 147,000).  Trump said McEntarfer, a Biden appointee manipulated the data to make him look bad.  He said on Truth Social that she would be replaced with someone “much more competent and qualified.”

It must be so much fun being Trump.  I think of how much fun it would be to fire the people who tick me off.  I’d fire the mailman when my mail was misdirected.  I’d fire the guy at the IRS who audited me.  I’d fire that cop who gave me the speeding ticket.  I’d fire the guy at the DMV who made me stand in the wrong line for a half hour.  I’d even fire that annoying woman who keeps sending me all that spam from my local politicians.  All these people would be fired and then I would crow about it and make them feel bad.  It would be so much fun.

But seriously, Trump is the guy who cuts through the nonsense and attacks problems as straightforwardly as can be imagined.  Base on the size of the revisions which are the largest such changes in sixty years he knows he’s being sabotaged by partisan operatives and he responds directly and effectively.  Something tells me the BLS is about to get a complete make-over that includes removing all the apparatchiks that were placed there by Obama and Biden and replacing them with a software program that gathers this data from the endless list of government statistics that already exist.  My guess is that it will streamline and optimize the process and it will also do it with a fraction of the number of employees and in a small percentage of the time currently taken to do it by abacus and cuneiform tablets.  I also imagine that there will be some BLS employees who will be willing to confess where the bodies are buried and whistle blow on McEntarfer and her cronies as to how they were cooking the books.

So, as we move past the six-month mark of the Trump administration the important thing to remember is that the fun is never really over.  At any time, Trump can descend from Mount Olympus and hurl a thunderbolt at some blasphemer among the denizens of Tartarus who still refuse to abase themselves at his feet.  Whether it’s the head of BLS or a climate scientist at the EPA or a college president or some state official in a “sanctuary community,” any of them are fair game for the “wrath of Don.”  And for me, the best part about it is the relish he seems to feel when he lowers the boom on these unfortunate targets.  They not only get fired or fined or audited he also mocks them mercilessly with deadly precision; replaced with someone “much more competent and qualified.”  I love that.