It’s 1984

Friday, Donald Trump did what every good (bad?) dictator does: He shot the messenger. The monthly jobs report showed just 73,000 jobs in July, with big reductions to May's and June's numbers, so Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, casting aspersions on her in a social media post, calling her a “Biden appointee” and claiming, falsely, that she played games with the numbers.

The message to every single government employee is clear. If the numbers, the outcomes, or anything else look bad for Trump, fudge it or risk losing your job. It’s all about personal loyalty, which comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Still, this is 1984-level stuff.

McEntarfer is an economist, a data person, with a Ph.D. The New York Times reported that she had broad bipartisan support when the Senate confirmed her to the position in 2024 in an 86-8 vote, which included yeas from then-Senators JD Vance and Marco Rubio. She had worked in the Census Bureau during both Republican and Democratic administrations for 20 years before going to Treasury. That’s not the resume of an ideologue. But Trump doesn’t care about people who’ve worked hard to build their careers as public servants. He just wants to look good, whether he’s doing good or not. So McEntarfer had to go.

If you’ve already started reading George Orwell’s 1984 for our book club this month, this story really resonates. Our timing with reading the book is impeccable. It’s almost as though Trump is reading the book too, but reading it as a guidance manual, not a cautionary tale.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.” Rewriting history is Orwellian to the core. Breathtakingly, shockingly so. The fact remains that even though the Senate refused to convict on either occasion, Donald Trump was impeached twice, the only president that has happened to during a single term in office. The first time was for attempting to use much-needed security aid that Congress had voted to send to Ukraine as a quid pro quo to obtain an announcement from that country’s brand-new leader at the time, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that Joe Biden was under investigation in that country for corruption. The second impeachment was in connection with January 6. That is the history of our nation, which nothing can change.

But in the novel 1984, facts are not a barrier. Rewriting history is a central tenet of the totalitarian regime, carried out by the Ministry of Truth. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t read that far yet, but life seems to be imitating art right now, and it’s a compelling sign that Trump does not mean to limit himself to the powers the Constitution assigns to a president. This is a time to be driving that point home with friends who still haven’t caught on, and we are going to have a lot to talk about as we read the book. I’m signing up some great guests to join us throughout the month.

But there’s a little good news, or at least a silver lining in this. The Washington Post reported that following its story, the Smithsonian issued a statement that said, “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.” Their excuse for why the removed mention of Trump for an exhibit that referred to the impeachments of Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, along with a mention that Richard Nixon would have been impeached had he not resigned, was nonsensical: “Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.” But it’s plain that coverage by the press and outrage by the media still matter.

So, as Trump prepares to erase the truth and write his own version of the country’s past and present, our job is to stay informed and express our anger and disgust. Orwell wrote, “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." Trump controls the present and is trying to change the past. He’s also, as with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, trying to change the present in hopes he can continue to control the future. It’s a dark moment.

When Trump took control of the Kennedy Center, firing the Board and appointing himself, art and theater fought back. If you haven’t seen it already, watch “One Gay More.” We can all fight back, too. Trump’s efforts to change the past and the present are transparent, and the right answer is the one these artists took: to make fun of it, to laugh at it, to ridicule it, and to ridicule the man who thinks we will fall for it. Today it’s jobs numbers; tomorrow it will be the Epstein files or whatever else Trump fears at the moment. Let’s be loud. There are no alternative facts when it comes to American history.

Share your thoughts!

We’re in this together,

Joyce.