FACTS, OPINIONS—AN AUTHORITARIAN’S “REALITY” PART 2

YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN DESCRIBING “Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook,” by Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times. We continue this today in Part 2, with Nobel-winning economist George A. Akerof asking “What to Do When the President Acts Like a 5-Year-Old?” And to leaven matters, we conclude with satirist extraordinaire Andy Borowitz.

Alternative Reality. Baker recounts in his Guest Essay, “During his first term as president, Mr. Trump chastised the National Park Service for not backing up his off-the-top-of-his-head estimate of the crowd size at his inauguration. He used a Sharpie pen to alter a map to argue that he was right to predict that a hurricane might hit Alabama, and federal weather forecasters were rebuked for saying it would not.”

The Most Odious. “Most explosively,” Baker continues, “he pressured Justice Department officials to falsely declare that the 2020 election was corrupt and therefore stolen from him even after they told him there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”

Image from statista.com.

What’s more, Baker writes, “Just last week, the Smithsonian Institution confirmed that it had removed Mr. Trump from an exhibit on impeachment at the National Museum of American History, despite the fact that he is the only president to have been impeached twice. The exhibit was changed to say that ‘only three presidents have seriously faced removal,’ referring to Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton—with no mention of Mr. Trump…. After The Washington Post and other outlets reported about the change, the Smithsonian on Saturday said the exhibit would be ‘updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation’s history.’ ”

All of this is historical revisionism of the most despicable order, akin to anti-woke deletion from history of things like the Enola Gay.

Firing Erika McEntarfer. Baker says, “The president’s decision to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, came just hours after her office issued its monthly report showing that job growth in July was just half as much as last year’s average. The bureau also revised downward the estimated job creation of the two previous months. Mr. Trump erupted at the news and ordered her dismissed, claiming on social media that the numbers were ‘RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.’ He offered no proof but just said it was ‘my opinion.’ ”

Geez.

 “What to Do When the President Acts Like a 5-Year-Old?” Nobel-winning economist George A. Akerof poses this question in a Guest Essay, The New York Times, August 3, 2025. “Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game,” Professor Akerof says. “The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead—until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. ‘He cheated!’ the losing child yells. ‘I’m the winner anyway!’ he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship.”

Akerof continues, “The President didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping.”

How much longer will the American people put up with this behavior?? 

Let’s End on a High Note. The humor of satirist extraordinaire Andy Borowitz has long delighted me. His latest is spot-on with today’s topic: Andy writes, “In one of the most stunning political comebacks in American history, on Monday Donald J. Trump picked the disgraced former congressman George Santos to lead the Department of Labor Statistics.… ‘The American economy added a million new jobs in May and a billion new jobs in June,’ Santos declared. ‘President Trump is creating jobs like crazy—he even gave one to Pete Hesgeth.’ ”

My highest praise, Andy. Your humor helps me live through all this. ds

 © Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025