A Liberal in Trumpistan: Trump Can't Fool Trump: A Good Jobs Report and a Hideous Truth

I try to chronicle the strange doings of President Trump every day on my blog. In this installment we learn that tens of millions of Americans must still be employed!

Who says so? You will see.

9/8/18: In case you missed the story, the good jobs report for August masks a hideous reality.

How do I know? Have I been reading “Fake News?” I admit I subscribe to the “failing New York Times” seven days a week.

But a front page story in the Times on Friday focused on the positive aspects of the report. “The American economy’s stamina was showcased Friday as the government reported that wages in August sprinted forward at their fastest pace since the recession ended and that the job creation streak extended to 95 months.”

The “enemies of the people” at the Times added: “the jobless rate remained under 4 percent, near territory not seen since the 1960s; and average hourly earnings rose by 10 cents, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier.”

Well, you cannot fool me with your Fake News! I am going to quote Donald J. Trump, the greatest president in the history of the Republic, previously the greatest businessman ever to walk the earth, or any planet, assuming there might be life in distant corners of the galaxy—such as Giant Ferret Women. If such lovely creatures did exist and ever saw the president they would definitely put on the moves in hopes of mating! That sexy orange coif, those jowls, that lumpy body! No Giant Ferret Woman could resist!

Wait. Where was I?

If there are giant ferret ladies somewhere in the universe they will definitely fall for this look!
It looks like two ferrets are mating atop the president's head.

Who am I to imagine that Trump ever lied about job numbers?

Yes, the economy. Friday the White House was touting the August report as “blockbuster” news. Press Secretary Pinocchio said Americans should run out in November and vote for Republicans, like lemmings.

Yes. The economy added 201,000 jobs last month. Yes. Non-farm wages are up, year-over-year, 2.9%. That’s the best yearly gain since 2009.

You still can’t fool me. I am going to quote someone Trump loyalists will find impossible to dispute. This man has made the bad news clear. He has warned that tens of millions of Americans still remain without jobs. They apparently live underground, occasionally sticking their heads out of doors, like Punxsutawney Phil, desperately looking for work. There are no jobs to be seen and they retreat to their loungers to await the coming of boom times.

Who says? Donald J. Trump says. And who am I to imagine that this great man might ever lie?

They give up looking for jobs; 93,000,000 unemployed.

In February 2016, with Obama holding the fort, Trump appeared on Fox News and made it clear to host Sarah Palin (remember her) that the nation’s unemployment situation was dire. “Well, if you really looked, Sarah, at the economy it’s been terrible,” Trump claimed. “We have 93,000,000 people out of work. They look for jobs, they give up, and all of a sudden, statistically, they’re considered employed.”

There might be fools who believed the good monthly jobs reports issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics back in those days.

Not Trump.

Those good monthly numbers—which Candidate Trump called “rigged”—showed that once the Great Recession ended in late 2010, the economy added jobs 76 months in a row, under Obama.

In January 2017, Sean Hannity blasted Obama one last time as he left office. It burned his ass, Hannity said, to listen to the outgoing president boast about the healthy economy as he returned to civilian life. Hannity was wise to the scam. The state of the economy was not good:

Well, facts, they paint a much different picture. Now, what is actually true, he oversaw the precipitous decline of the American economy, that’s a fact. And here’s why. Under President Obama we have seen the lowest labor participation rate since the 70s, 95 million of your fellow Americans are out of the labor force, he didn’t mention that tonight…”

So there you had it. Facts! Hannity facts! Trump facts! Holy-shit-facts!!!! Somewhere north of 90,000,000 Americans were desperate for work. Trump was warning voters not to elect Hillary. If they did the economy would crash, just as it had in 2008—because of Obama—when President George W. Bush was in office. The good jobs numbers that had been pouring forth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics since late 2010, Trump insisted, were fake.

First, he claimed the real unemployment rate was 15%. Then he said it was 18 to 20 percent. On August 11, 2015, when the official rate was 5.4%, Trump insisted “it’s probably 40%.”

Trump was fuzzy about numbers. He often is. No matter! By August 30, he had the rate nailed. “The real number,” he told a reporter, “I saw a number that could be 42 percent, believe it or not.”

Believe it or not!

In September 2015, Candidate Trump said the unemployment number was either 24% or 42%.

In October he said it was 32%.

By the start of 2016, he was claiming the Bureau of Labor Statistic had “cooked the books.” The jobs reports were “phony.” In February Trump revealed the truth. The unemployment rate was 35%! Or maybe 42%! It was awful either way.

In August 2016 he scoffed at the official unemployment rate. “The 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.”

The shocking facts, as revealed by Donald J. Trump.

Even after he won election Trump couldn’t be fooled—and neither could his fans. “The unemployment number, as you know,” Trump told reporters in December 2016, “is totally fiction.”

Then he took charge. The Trump jobs boom began! Or so we were told. But Donald J. Trump himself, with the able assistance of Hannity and the rest of the hosts at Fox News, had tipped this liberal off. The numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics had to be wrong.

Here are the shocking facts, as revealed by Donald J. Trump! Starting from that figure of 93,000,000 unemployed, which he posited at the end of 2016, the Bureau reported that in January 2017, 259,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. The official unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent.

When the jobs report for February 2017, Trump’s first full month in office, was good, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the numbers might have been phony in the past. Now they were “very real.”

Only this liberal knew math! I had listened to Candidate Trump and his sidekick, Gelled Hair Sean.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 200,000 jobs were added in February 2017. The Bureau claimed the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.7 percent. But I was using Trump’s figures because I knew Trump never lies. He just can’t do it. He is the modern equivalent of George Washington with his little hatchet, facing a cherry tree of facts. He cannot cut it down and say he didn’t. And by his figures more than 92.5 million Americans still had to be seeking work!

I’m not crazy. I can’t deny addition and subtraction.

The economy has continued to add jobs every month since Trump took charge. The streak of 95 positive monthly job reports has continued through 2018. In nineteen full months since he first took office 3,583,000 jobs have been added to the U.S. economy (February 2017-August 2018).

The numbers must still be “rigged!”

Well, you still can’t fool me. I have a calculator and I know how to punch buttons. As of now, Trump can claim he has been adding 188,579 jobs per month. And the unemployment rate has officially dropped to 3.9 percent. But I was not born yesterday. I was born in 1949. I’m old. You can’t trick me again—like when I thought Obama was adding jobs 76 months in succession.

If we subtract all the jobs created under Trump, from the number of Americans who Trump and Hannity swore were crying out for work (we’ll use Trump’s lower estimate), then we find:

93,000,000 Americans looking for work (December 2016)

- 259,000 jobs added in January 2017

- 3,583,000 jobs created since

89,158,000 Americans still looking for work!

In other words, since I have listened to Hannity and Lou Dobbs and all the angry right-wing nuts, I know the horrible truth. The official unemployment rate can’t be right. The numbers must be “rigged.” By Trump’s own math, we know more than 89,000,000 Americans are still pounding the pavement, crying out, “Work! Work! I’ll even wait tables at Mar-a-Lago, but I need work!”

So I am going to try to estimate the true unemployment rate, using the kind of math Trump employed when Obama was in office. I am going to figure the rate is 39%. Or maybe 26%, or some other scary number, like 102%. Frankly, I don’t know. But it can’t possibly be as low as 3.9%.

Because I know math and I listened to Trump.