【Text by Observer Net, Wang Yi】"President of the United States Trump is pushing forward his long-standing practice - excluding all facts and data that conflict with his perfect governance narrative."

Axios, an American political news website, published an article on August 9th stating that in this "Trump reality," good data is widely publicized, even if it is made up by him; bad numbers are considered fake, even if they come from the same institution, and are seen as a "political conspiracy" to defame him. The accusations against the Democrats must be investigated thoroughly, while those against him are "witch hunts."

More worrying is that, according to the article, most departments of the federal government have begun to operate according to his view of reality.

The latest incident happened last Friday. At that time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report stating that the US added 73,000 jobs in July, far below market expectations. At the same time, the report significantly revised down the employment data for May and June, with May's new jobs falling from 144,000 to 19,000, and June's from 147,000 to 14,000, totaling a revision of 258,000 positions over the two months.

This "most concerning economic data during his term" greatly angered Trump. He immediately took action to fire the director of the bureau, Erica McEntee, accusing her of "manipulating data" to embarrass him, and he used the bureau's revised employment data from previous months as evidence of "data fabrication." Trump also brought up old issues, claiming that McEntee was an official appointed by former President Biden, who had "artificially inflated" employment data before last year's US election to "increase the chances of Democratic candidate Harris winning."

In general, the strategy adopted by Trump's team is to select data that makes their management of the economy look better and their political opponents look worse.

For example, the latest US gross domestic product (GDP) data shows that the second quarter GDP grew by 3% year-on-year, exceeding the market's expected 2.4%. Trump's team publicly celebrated this, but deliberately ignored the fact that underlying growth was only 1.2%. Last week, the inflation indicator favored by the Federal Reserve rose by 2.8% annually, but Trump's team directed attention to another lower figure, the 2.1% increase in the personal consumption expenditure price index for the second quarter.

Axios website pointed out that Trump's narrative had been laid out 200 days ago. In his January inauguration speech, Trump declared that America would enter a "golden age," and immediately characterized it as already achieved, rather than a goal to be worked for. After several months of blaming "Biden's economy" for poor economic data, the White House announced the official start of the "Trump economy." However, just two days later, the bleak employment data came like a bucket of cold water.

Similarly, in polls, Trump often promotes his support rate as "unusually high," but data from the leading comprehensive polling website "RealClearPolitics" shows that his support has not been high since mid-March, currently at 45%. Other polls also show that public disapproval of Trump's presidency is between 46% and 51%.

American Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC)

Regarding the "big and beautiful" tax and spending bill that Trump strongly promotes, surveys show that more than half of Americans oppose it. This bill did not receive much support in several polls in June, with Pew Research Center surveying its support rate at 29%, and 35% of people holding a negative attitude toward it in the KFF survey.

On the issue of deporting illegal immigrants, even though enforcement officials have become increasingly radical, public attitudes towards immigration have clearly become more moderate, but the Trump administration still decided to take the toughest extremist approach.

Axios article stated that even in some areas where the Trump administration has achieved results, they tend to exaggerate their achievements. He recently claimed that he "prevented six wars, solving one war on average each month." The actual situation is that the US played a role in mediating between Cambodia and Thailand, and India and Pakistan, but the two major issues of Gaza and Ukraine remain unresolved.

The Newsweek also pointed out that although members of the Trump administration and some of his supporters call him the "chief peacemaker" and frequently nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, more critics say that Trump and his administration were not as involved in many peace talks as they claimed, and the truces and peace agreements he advocated were soon proven to be fragile, some of which collapsed or were on the verge of collapse within weeks of being announced.

In the key area of economics, Axios website admitted that the government controlled inflation to some extent, but Trump's claims of drug prices dropping "1200%, 1300%, 1400%, 1500%" and oil prices falling to $2 are complete nonsense.

Geoffrey Joyce, director of the Health Policy and Economics Center at the University of Southern California, said Trump's data is "completely fictional," and if true, it would be equivalent to pharmaceutical companies paying customers.

Mariana Socal, associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, also found that "it is difficult to convert these numbers into the actual figures patients see at the pharmacy counter," and Trump's math "is really hard to understand."

More notably, the Trump administration seems to have started redefining some economic indicators. GDP data comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is supervised by the Commerce Secretary, Luke, but he now advocates that the GDP calculation formula should exclude government spending.

In March this year, Luke complained, "If the government buys a tank, it counts as GDP, but paying 1,000 people to consider buying a tank does not count as GDP, it is a waste of money."

Yahoo Finance analysis points out that the intention of the Trump administration to redefine the GDP calculation method can be seen in the "value-added by private industry" (VAPI) data they have already released. In the spring, Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) paid particular attention to this data and promised to cut VAPI, which is said to be avoiding economic difficulties in this field. Although with Musk's departure and the decline of DOGE, discussions about changing the GDP calculation method have gradually faded, but the efforts of Trump administration officials to analyze data in a way that benefits themselves continue.

This article is an exclusive piece by Observer Net. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7536882668245172736/

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