[jacobyoder]

> Instead of firing the commissioner, the president should be giving the agency a raise in the form of a bigger budget. The goal should be to restore public trust in government statistics, not undermine it.

When you believe that government should not be providing many services, or doing most of what it currently does overall, why would you want to bolster trust in government statistics? Those statistics might contradict the administration, which is not a goal of the administration and its backers.

[hypeatei]

I understand why articles like this are written and why we have these conversations but it all feels like we're sane washing this administration. Any other administration (especially a Democrat) firing the head of BLS due to unsavory numbers would be a scandal on its own. Yet, we're seven months into this one with multiple corruption scandals flooding the zone. It just seems crazy that we're here justifying basic concepts of government/public service and not outright calling this out for what it is.

[freedomben]

> but it all feels like we're sane washing this administration

This is not a defense of the admin or their actions, but if there's something we should have learned well over the past 100+ years of history, it's not to assume insanity on the part of people who disagree with you. It feels good to assume that we are so correct that anyone disagreeing with us must be insane, but it's a deeply unproductive (and often counter-productive) way to interact with people.

Personally, I think they think that places like the BLS are stacked with "deep state" people that are trying to sabotage the current administration. I think that's mostly absurd, but they don't, and without evidence either way it's a matter of opinion (I personally lean heavily on things like Hanlon's Razor and trying to gauge "likeliness" rather than assuming the best or worst). If you believe as they do, then cleaning house is not only good but necessary, so the actions aren't insane. If we don't try to (in good faith) understand their beliefs/motivations, and just assume they are just randomly pulling triggers, not only will we only further entrench partisan divides (nothing alienates somebody more than feeling they aren't being properly understood), but we hinder our own ability to predict and prepare for the future.

[mfcorgi]

The prior comment is not using the definition of sane/insane as in: "the leadership of the White House is composed of people that are insane." Rather: "the decisions and policies set forth by the White House are insane." That's an important distinction.

To "sane-wash" is to take an extraordinary break from liberal order/american historical norms and treat such break as normal politics.

I completely agree that there are rational actors at the White House who have an incorrect sense of a Deep State at the BLS, and are taking what they would describe as a rational step and firing it's leader. But simply because they are rational does not mean that their subsequent decisions are rational.

If am a rational person and I have an incorrect belief that my house has cockroaches, then I burn down my house to get of the cockroaches, then the news media reports I "took bold new steps to rid my house of cockroaches," I have been sane washed.

[amanaplanacanal]

For something like this, all the data are there. They show their work. The administration could try to check and see if the numbers are correct, but they don't.

[qcnguy]

There's no need. The BLS themselves check their own numbers and huge revisions have become normal. The idea that the BLS is getting things wrong isn't controversial and has been flagged by economists for years. If you want to understand this POV read this:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-169836476

Others and I mercilessly criticized the BLS during the Biden Administration for the huge downward revisions that occurred every month under the prior administration. Reporting good numbers one month, only to revise them down significantly over the next two months, when no one was paying attention. Frankly, at the time, it looked political. Now it appears to be just gross incompetence.

Understand, the revisions to the employment data last Friday were the largest revisions in my lifetime. More than 90% of the initially reported jobs didn’t exist. Combined with the revisions over the past three years, it is clear that something at BLS is broken. I have spent a career building statistical forecast and prediction models. If my models produced 90% errors, I would have adjusted them, or I would have been fired. Ms. McEntarfer didn’t make adjustments….so she was fired.

[breakyerself]

I think you're giving them too much credit. I don't think they care if the numbers are legit. They care about the optics. They're happy to lie about what they believe if it fits the optics they want to project.

[wat10000]

I think they think that government is inherently bad (with the exception of the military and certain law enforcement) and reducing it is automatically good. I think this because I heard Rush Limbaugh saying it for three hours a day every day for years. It’s not hard to figure out their motivations. Just listen to them. Understanding those motivations can be tough, due to a combination of very different values and a reliance on various facts that happen to be untrue, but you can at least figure out the first level pretty easily.

[hypeatei]

I'm not saying MAGA supporters are insane or that Trump himself is insane. I'm merely pointing out that the response to the extraordinary levels of corruption in this administration is insane along with the actions themselves considering what scandals plagued previous administrations.

You can try to steelman their view all you want, what we're seeing is bold-faced corruption: Trump coin crypto investor dinners, Trump mobile, receiving a $400M jet from Qatar, Tech executives donating to him in various ways to curry favor, and revoking security clearances from law firms who represent things he doesn't like. Just to name a few.

[freedomben]

Thanks, with that clarification, we are actually in perfect agreement

[jacobyoder]

> and without evidence either way it's a matter of opinion

The absence of evidence is used as evidence of the thing (hostile deep state actors) existing, because they're so good they can hide their tracks so well that they can't be found. They must be stopped.

When lack of evidence is the proof... I'm not sure there's much room for rational discussion.

"...and just assume they are just randomly pulling triggers...hinder our own ability to predict and prepare for the future."

Speaking about the current politics and US administration, much of what's coming doesn't need to be 'predicted' - it's unfolding from the project2025 document. Not everything happening is from there, but quite a lot is.

[lubujackson]

Luckily, we don't need to "try in good faith" to understand their motivations. They published a manifesto about it (Project 2025) and are systematically going down that list of sweeping changes. These changes don't happen in a bubble.

[throwanem]

Right. That's a good deal of what gets them away with it. You have to crush this stuff while it's small.

[piva00]

Unfortunately there are lots of people on the sidelines that watch them screaming "censorship!", "persecution!", "injustice!" and fall for it. Any act against them is met with whining and fake outrage, and it works politically.

You can see this in action even in here, a forum where most people are more well-educated than 90% of the global population, they still swallow those cries as if this administration is the victim.

What is even more amusing and weird is how much the same side likes to scream "stop being a victim" while continuously playing into victimising themselves.

[mapt]

"The card says moops"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4

The liberal can't argue with inauthentic memes. They must give the benefit of the doubt by their own rules. The conservative sees this as an exploit that they can use to win the game every time. Because they see it as a game, amoral, based on scoring symbolic points for their preexisting tribal identity ("This family has always rooted for Liverpool"). They see it as a Conflict, not even of competing interests, but an inherent conflict of identity. The liberal insists on seeing it as a disagreement between friends, or an opportunity for education. An earnest Mistake. All of their rhetorical tools are based on persuading someone reasoning in good faith.

[throwanem]

"Liberal" means refusing smugly on principle to even try to fight, then crying about how unfair it is to keep catching all these ass kickings.

Nobody likes a loser. So if you want people to like your politics, don't be a loser.

[alemanek]

Exactly, it drives me insane that people are still thinking this administration is in any way acting in good faith. The argument you quote above is assuming an awful lot of good faith when this administration continually lies and violates court orders.

Hell they lied about Trumps weight and height on his physical.

[noitpmeder]

Exactly. Instead of battling with their own internal departments when they show lack-luster numbers in good faith, they can just blame the "agendas" of the non-blessed private sector companies who show the same data.

Even better, they can exult the virtues of select private sector companies who show "good" "approved" data.

What? No, no conflict of interest that members of the President's immediate family happens to hold board seats in those "approved" companies.