Federal jobs data and the rational basis for distrust

The WSJ reports that Federal Reserva chairman Jerome Powell suspects that federal jobs data is underestimating job losses. By now things like that should be no surprise to most people who pay attention and are not staunch Trump supporters. For months Trump and MAGA elites have been targeting federal data collection and analysis functions to get rid of inconvenient facts and truths.

Powell said Fed staff economists estimate that federal payroll statistics may be overstating job creation by up to 60,000 jobs per month. Since published data show average gains of roughly 40,000 jobs a month since April. If those estimates are right, the true underlying reality would be a loss of about 20,000 jobs per month. 

In view of recent history, it is not unreasonable or irrational to distrust data coming from the Trump administration. Given the evidence, recent unprecedented actions against federal statistical agencies make skepticism reasonable and rational. While historical safeguards at agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) were designed to be robust against political interference, MAGA actions indicate that these firewalls have been dismantled. The current reality is plain to see -- Trump has moved well beyond rhetoric. He has in fact purged officials who produce inconvenient data.

One example is from August 2025. In that situation, Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer because she was responsible for release of inconvenient jobs data. Without evidence (as usual), Trump lied and falsely claimed that the numbers were "RIGGED" to make him look bad. In firing her, he cynically breached public trust. The BLS Commissioner is a fixed-term technical role, not a standard political appointee. The Commissioner's job is specifically to protect economic data from political interference by a president or congress. By firing the head of the agency for producing inconvenient data, Trump signaled to remaining BLS staff that their job security depends on producing convenient data, not accurate data.

By now, all of this lying, corruption and sleaze is just normal business operations under morally rotted Trump and morally rotted MAGA elites in power. Trump voters asked for this, and now they are getting it good and hard. Too bad the rest of us are getting it too -- we didn't ask for it.

Legal scholar commentary on what is happening to our democracy

 

Context

The unitary executive: The six Republican justices on the current USSC (US Supreme Court) support an authoritarian radical legal theory called the unitary executive. Of the six, only Alito has publicly stated he supports a unitary executive. The support of the other five is implicit but clear from their decisions and reliance on the shadow docket to dismantle democracy with essentially no explanation. The implicit, unstated goal of a radical right unitary executive is to establish a dictatorship that (1) calls itself a democracy, and (2) is run by an unrestrained president who is above the law. The explicit stated goal is that by giving almost unlimited power to the president, they will be more accountable to voters via elections than presidents in the past have been.

So far, the six Republican judges have not explained how an unrestrained president will be constrained by elections alone. The six simply say that elections will be the accountability mechanism and our liberty will be protected that way. They provide no explanation of how that would actually work in view of how democracy and elections currently work. They also ignore dissents in their opinions that expose the logical incoherence of empowering a dictator and then expecting them to be accountable to the people. Empirical evidence about dictatorships indicate that they are simply wrong. By definition, dictators are not accountable to the people. Calling a president with dictator-level power a "unitary executive" does not change the fact that he is still a dictator. The disdain of the six Republican judges for reasoned dissenting argument is evidence of their authoritarian intent.

Dictatorship science: From a social science point of view, the unitary executive theory operates on a catastrophically flawed assumption about competence and the public interest. Political science systematically refutes the idea that loyalist-staffed agencies will govern effectively and serve the public rather than the president's personal interests or special interests. There is no mechanism that would ensure service to the public interest as long as a unitary executive is in office. Available evidence shows the opposite occurs routinely (and this), with the dictator and allied special interests generally benefitting at the expense of the public interest and civil liberties.

The experts opine

A NYT opinion (not paywalled) by legal scholars of democracy and dictatorship assess the current state of affairs with the USSC regarding our democracy and rule of law. At issue is radical right authoritarian or MAGA attacks on the independence of supposedly independent federal agencies. Court’s right wing has made clear over several terms that the New Deal/Great Society model of expert, semi‑independent agencies is basically unconstitutional. The opinion ties this to recent and pending cases about agencies like the CFPB, SEC, FTC, NLRB, and others.

According to the experts, the USSC is (1) further removing of restrictions on a president’s power to fire people with or without any reason, (2) placing limits on agencies’ funding outside the annual appropriations process, and (3) limiting delegation of authority from Congress to executive agencies. This is part of a coordinated campaign to gut and neuter the administrative functions by shifting power from congress and federal agencies to the president.

In particular, agencies that serve democracy and the public interest while constraining a president, e.g., ethics offices, civil service protections, and protections for consumers, labor, environment, and elections, are all attacked. They are weakened or completely neutered as unconstitutional or “unaccountable”. By contrast with gutting public interest federal functions, agencies that enable Trump, e.g., ICE, DOJ leadership, partisan election enforcement, and the national security apparatus, are folded more tightly under direct presidential control. The net effect has been and is continuing to be a transfer of an enormous amount of unaccountable power to the president, i.e., the unitary executive.

In short, the USSC’s ongoing project is not a neutral rebalancing of power. Instead, it is a focused, wholesale empowerment of presidential power that is aligned with his own interests and those of allied special interests. That presidential power is not aligned with the public interest, democracy, the rule of law or civil liberties. It is aligned with the president himself.

The one-way flow of power: Finally, the experts point out that that the Court’s supposed concerns about “accountability” and “separation of powers” overwhelmingly cuts in only one direction, namely in favor of the unitary executive. Environmental, labor, consumer protection, civil rights, and financial regulatory agencies are gutted and neutered. By contrast, corporate and wealthy interests gain major new leverage, e.g., by blocking or nullifying complex regulation. Also, when the Court invalidates or narrows agency powers, it rarely insists that Congress actually step in to fill the gap. The USSC knows full well that polarization and gridlock will keep our broken Congress from doing much of anything to compete with the president for the affected powers.

Collectively, all of that contradicts elite MAGA claims that these power flows are about a legitimate constitutional structure. Instead, this is about major deregulatory politics disguised as distortions about what the Founders intended and actually produced. The USSC's administrative‑law project is partisan institutional engineering, not a neutral, principled or fact-based exercise of constitutional theory.

Points for consideration

Accountability America's democratic regulatory state depends on a mix of laws enacted by Congress, expert implementation of those laws by agencies with expertise, and procedural safeguards, transparency, and judicial review to protect the public interest. Weak, delegitimized independent agencies will be unable to resist abusive, partisan, or corrupt uses of power exercised by a unitary executive. In essence, we will have a dictator for a president, or something close to it.

Is that a plausible assessment of our current situation? What compelling empirical evidence is there that contradicts that assessment?

Politics at Christmas Time.

 Advisable or not? Let's ask AI :

Why Christmas Might Be a Good Time to Drop Politics

Focus on Togetherness and Peace

Avoid Conflict

Prioritize Relationships

Why Christmas Might Be a Better Time to Bring Up Politics

 Family gatherings provide a rare opportunity to have face-to-face conversations

 If your family generally shares similar values, discussing how current politics affect those values might serve as a positive and unifying conversation about community and the future

 Some view every opportunity to discuss civic matters as important, believing that open dialogue is necessary for a healthy democracy, even during Christmas

I like both arguments. You can't ignore politics just because it's Christmas but it could damage the Christmas mood if too focused on politics.

So, what does SNOWFLAKE say?

Buh Humbug at bringing up politics during Christmas!

Regarding American authoritarianism: NSPM-7 and MAGA's domestic terrorist list

 The origin and content of NSPM-7

On Sept. 25, 2025 Trump signed NSPM-7, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. NSPM-7's subject was countering domestic terrorism and organized political violence. The memo's language is broad enough to encompass legal, peaceful political opposition such as Dissident Politics as a source of domestic terrorism that can be targeted by federal law enforcement. Some of the relevant language from NSPM-7 is this:

Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased in recent years.  Even in the aftermath of the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk, some individuals who adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence.

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.”  These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution.  This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.

These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions**.** These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing, where the private or identifying information of their targets (such as home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information) is exposed to the public with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault them. (emphases added)

Criticisms of Trump and MAGA elites often made here are that they are authoritarian and kleptocratic. There is plenty of evidence to rationally support those criticisms. Despite that fact- and reason-based truth, NSPM-7 legally reframes such criticism as the "radicalization" phase of a violence campaign. Here Trump has directly converted good faith, fact-based criticism from constitutionally protected free speech to an actionable source of domestic terrorism. Thus, people merely criticizing Trump and MAGA authoritarianism and corruption don't have to be violent to be targeted. Instead, they just have to share an "ideology" that a violent actor might also held.

Catch-alls: There is a catch all in NSPM-7 to sweep in criticism of MAGA under the "anti-fascism" label. Trump's memo states that the label "anti-fascism" is a "lie" used to "justify and encourage acts of violent revolution." It then lists "common threads" ..... [including] extremism on migration, race, and gender." Thus even if there are significant parallels between (a) Trump, his MAGA elites and their authoritarian tactics, and (b) old-fashioned fascists or Nazis, simply making the comparison can put someone on Trump's domestic terrorist list, so they can be surveilled, financially harassed, subjected to federal conspiracy charges, and maybe some even put in jail.

NSPM-7 explicitly lists anti-capitalism as a common thread of domestic terrorism. This sweeps in criticism of "oligarchs," "kleptocrats," and "corporate corruption", all of which can easily be framed as anti-capitalist and thus domestic terrorist rhetoric.

The vaguest and most dangerous catch-all is NSPM-7's assertion that anti-Americanism, which is not defined, is also linked to domestic terrorism. The scope of NSPM-7 includes any sharp criticism of the US government's legitimacy that can be framed as "anti-American." Thus calling the President a "dictator," "tyrant," or "illegitimate" attacks the core functioning of the state. According to MAGA dogma, that is now domestic terrorism. Terms that delegitimize the state, e.g., junta or police state, can be easily categorized as anti-American sentiment because they imply the government is an enemy to be resisted rather than a democratic administration to be debated.

Federal implementation of NSPM-7

The Bondi memo: According to the Ken Klippenstein substack, and other sources such as Reuters, Trump's weaponized DOJ has produced its own internal (not public) memo that makes clear MAGA's authoritarian intent to squelch legitimate, legal criticism. The memo leaked to the public. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the FBI to compile a "list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism." The Bondi memo is a masterpiece of how to weaponize law enforcement language to criminalize legitimate political opposition.

The Bondi memo explicitly states that domestic terrorists are "united by an anti-fascist platform", which the memo links to "an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes." The logical chain is simple: if you hold anti-fascist beliefs, you are part of the "common characteristic" network of domestic terrorists. This imposes guilt by ideological association, not guilt by conduct.

Thus, if a person or group has ever written that Trump is authoritarian, an autocrat, or a fascist, Bondi's DOJ memo provides the fig leaf to investigate them as part of the ideological network behind the "Charlie Kirk assassination". Thus a person or group is not charged with the assassination. Instead they are investigated simply for holding the shared ideology that supposedly motivated it.

The memo is designed to treat criticism that attacks the moral legitimacy of the ruling order (capitalist, traditional, nationalist) as the precursor to terrorism. No one needs to call Trump or MAGA elites Nazis or fascists to be on the domestic terrorism list. Calling them corrupt oligarchs destroying America or the like is enough.

Points to consider

This sounds like the creation of a federal speech and thought police force that has been licensed to police speech and thought that the police and dictator Trump want to see policed and suppressed. Is that a reasonable, rational, evidence-based assessment of NSPM-7 and Bondi's no-longer secret memo? Or is it crackpot conspiracy theory or blind partisan opposition to a molehill concern?