MAGA’s Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts

Reality is what Trump says it is

Just under two weeks ago the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a sharp slowdown in job growth — consistent with independent surveys that also show a slowing economy. Donald Trump responded by firing the Bureau’s head and wants to replace her with an unqualified right-wing hack — let’s be honest, OK? — whose big idea for dealing with troubling job numbers is to stop releasing them.

This week Trump seized control of the Washington DC police force and sent in the National Guard to deal with what he claims is a runaway crime wave, even though crime in the District has been falling rapidly.

What these two stories have in common is this: MAGA’s feelings don’t care about your facts. And the rejection of data Trump doesn’t like will surely extend to many areas beyond jobs and crime.

About jobs: E.J. Antoni, Trump’s pick for BLS Commissioner, has actually said that we should define a recession not on the basis of things like employment data or GDP but by how people “feel.” Now, that criterion wouldn’t serve him or his master very well if we look at surveys of public opinion. The American people appear to feel really bad about the economy:

But we already know that Trump dismisses polls he doesn’t like as fake news. So in practice, I think that Antoni is saying that we should define a recession by how Trump feels. And since he insists we’re in a boom, it’s all good.

About crime: If Trumpists wanted to make a semi-serious argument for occupying Washington, it would be that while DC crime is falling, it’s still high compared with relatively low-crime cities like New York or Los Angeles.

But that would mean admitting that big cities run by Democrats aren’t dystopian hellscapes, and they aren’t about to do that. Instead, we get assertions that crime data are rigged:

May I say that to anyone who pays the slightest amount of attention to New York politics, the idea that the NYPD is rigging the crime data to make liberal mayors look good is simply hilarious.

Anyway, MAGA types feel that big blue cities are incredibly dangerous, and they aren’t going to let actual facts about crime get in the way.

So which facts will be rejected in favor of feelings next? Trump’s tariffs are already starting to show in the inflation numbers, and the vast majority of independent economists believe that we’ll be seeing a lot more of that in the months ahead. Or maybe we won’t be seeing it. If a Trumpified BLS can stop releasing employment data, surely it can stop releasing price data too. Canceling those monthly reports would clearly be illegal, but who thinks that matters?

Then what? My guess is that the next frontier in feelings-over-facts will involve public health.

I’m not sure how many Americans realize how low our life expectancy is compared with other rich countries. The divergence began under Ronald Reagan, and was already a chasm even before partisanship led many Americans on the right to reject Covid vaccines:

In case you’re wondering, I included the most recent estimate for New York City, which aside from being a dystopian hellscape is one of the few places in America that has life expectancy comparable to other advanced countries. As Justin Fox has pointed out, a lot of this has to do with New Yorkers being less likely than other Americans to die in traffic accidents.

Anyway, we now have an anti-vaxxer, who reportedly doesn’t even accept the germ theory of infectious diseases, serving as America’s top health official. So it seems highly likely that U.S. life expectancy will fall even further behind the rest of the advanced world.

And there’s another factor that I didn’t take into account the last time I wrote about the MAGA Death Trip. Between cuts to Medicaid, reduced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and other policy changes, it seems likely that around 17 million Americans will lose health insurance over the next few years. And there’s clear evidence that loss of insurance will lead to higher mortality.

But RFK Jr. feels that he understands public health better than so-called medical experts, and neither Trump nor his allies seem to feel any concern about the impact of their budget decisions on health coverage.

So what will the response be when the data showing a sharp rise in uninsurance and a decline in life expectancy start coming in? It’s hard not to suspect that the people in charge will dismiss these numbers as fake and do their best to stop publishing them.

All in all, we’re clearly entering an era of policy driven by feelings rather than facts. But facts always win in the end.

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