Donald Trump opens mouth or tweets, Donald Trump spouts lies. Assume lying or deceiving and, well, you’re quite likely to be right more often than not. Here is an example for @RealDonaldTrump’s morning tirade.
Putting aside the opening for a moment, that ending just seems weird. As a (too many) decades-long consumer of / subscriber to major traditional media institutions, that headline just seemed weird. But, well, those quotation marks must make it true … right?
But I, as a Post subscriber, don’t remember seeing such a headline.
Amid the outrage that is the curse for thinking Americans when they wake up every day and remember that Trump (and his co-conspirators) occupy the Oval Office, this one got to me and got me to go check The Washington Post’s website.
A quick search for both the grammatically incorrect “Trumps first year jobs numbers were very, very good” and using “Trump’s” got the same result: nada.
Today’s Wall Street Journal above-the-fold front-page headline is “Jobs Notch Another Robust Year”. There are six graphs there, five that show historical timelines. Those five show clearly that (a) 2017 simply extended the trends established under President Barrack Obama (directly the nation clawing back fro the economic disaster that was the last Republican presidency) and (b) 2017 underperformed compared to under President Obama.
As to this post, Trump simply lied with quotation marks in his Tweet. His lapdog constituency eat it up: see, the #FakeNews media is finally acknowledging Trump’s grandeur and glory. We, the sane world, are in a Gish Gallop — always chasing the lie. This “” lie was stupid, easily caught, and — well — the sort of stupidity that would might earn a 7th grader an F on a class paper for misrepresentation and deceit. This lie, in itself, might seem rather meaningless — who cares? Of course, it is simply part of the lying machine that is Trump and his GOP enablers (and the other lies are so much more consequential). It is, however, illuminating as to the deceit that Trump engages in to shape his supporters (and, likely, his own) #AlternativeFacts worldview. For his supporters, no matter how many times it is pointed out that The Washington Post published no such headline, they will remember that the #FakeNews Washington Post admitted — at least in one arena -- that Trump is 'very, very good ...’ as those interested in living in reality set off on yet another Gish Gallop.
The Post article re Black employment is worth reading and considering, it provides a different window on the situation (surprisingly) than Trump’s tweet. Again, the fall in unemployment is continuing a trend established under President Obama. That trend, however, isn’t solely reduced unemployment:
Wages, however, continue to be stagnant, especially for African Americans. The median income for black households is still lower than it was in 2000,
I recommend that article — this post re The Post is not focused on the employment statistics (Black or otherwise) but about the very easily caught and ver tangible Trump lying with quotation marks.
During the aftermath of the financial crisis, black unemployment soared to 16.8 percent in 2010, meaning more than 1 out of every 6 African Americans was looking for a job but could not find one. The rate has steadily declined since, breaking the prior all-time low of 7 percent that was set in 2000 during the dot-com boom.
"6.8 percent unemployment rate for African Americans is lowest on record. Good news, except pretty bad news that this is the best ever,” tweeted Dean Baker, an economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The white unemployment rate is 3.7 percent. The black-white gap in hiring and pay has existed for decades, with the black unemployment rate typically more than double that of whites. But the gap has narrowed slightly to 1.85 times higher unemployment for blacks instead of 2 times as much.