Why the jobs report is a mortal threat to Trump

The authoritarian project could be doomed unless Trump convinces enough people, fairly quickly, that the economy is booming.

On Friday, Donald Trump did something that alarmed economists around the world—and even many Republicans in Congress—by firing the commissioner of labor statistics, Erika McEntarfer, hours after a very weak jobs report and revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed the previous months were even weaker. An angry, desperate Trump claimed without evidence that the numbers were “rigged” in a post in which he said, the economy is “BOOMING.”

Trump’s action signaled he will try to cook the books, killing reliable economic data. What other numbers would he try to fake? The markets and the entire world economy rely on accurate data. The ramifications could be staggering—and the opposite of what Trump would be attempting to do—causing massive uncertainly and broad disbelief, sending the economy into free fall.

The statistics chief, by the way, has very little to do with the numbers. As Harvard economist Jason Furman notes, “those numbers are produced by the 2,000 nonpartisan career staff members who work in the agency, in this case compiling the survey responses from the more than 100,000 businesses that report their employment to the B.L.S. every month.”

So why was Trump so spooked by the numbers to engage in such an impulsive and reckless action that even many in his party were freaked out by? Because Trump and those in the White House who might have supported his action are exceedingly desperate, as their authoritarian project is facing what could be insurmountable resistance.

The Epstein saga, a completely unexpected revolt within the MAGA base, has thrown them off, split their supporters and proven to be uncontrollable—a ravaging wildfire. Without a unified base, any would-be dictator of a representative democracy who is attempting to transform it into an authoritarian state is dealing with enormous drag.

So that is already one big area of concern for Trump. But another element that is absolutely necessary for his project is for the majority of people to believe the economy is booming.

Many commentators who are experts on authoritarianism have made the point that what distinguishes Trump from Hungary’s Victor Orban, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan—and even many fascists in history, like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler—is that they all had solid majorities in public approval numbers early on and for quite some time. This allowed them to consolidate power over time and engage in anti-Democratic actions with little public pushback.

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That is not the case with Trump, who, with numbers in the toilet, is facing massive public resistance. For all of those other leaders, one reason the public was behind them was because of the belief that the economy was booming—whether or not it was true. Putin became president after years of economic stagnation in a fledging democracy, a nation coming out of decades of communist rule that deprived people of basic necessities, let alone luxuries.

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Putin early on oversaw a growth in GDP, an expansion of the economy that got a big flat screen TV in every home, which kept enough people content for long enough for him to chip away at democracy. It was a much longer term project, however, than Trump is facing, trying to install autocracy within four years.

Similarly, Erdogan, who, unlike Trump, has more control over interest rates, cut rates and kept them low in the face of astronomical inflation—which came to be known as "Erdoganomics”—allowing for cheap borrowing and the appearance of a booming economy (until he eventually was forced to increase rates or face economic calamity). Again, this kept enough people happy long enough for Erdogan to strip democratic rights, but it didn’t happen overnight.

This also explains why Trump keeps pressuring Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve to cut rates—to the point of floating the idea of firing Powell, though the Supreme Court has made clear he can’t. He wants that cheap borrowing to give people the sense of a boom, taking a page from Erdogan.

In Hungary, Victor Orban also worked over a longer period of time to dismantle democratic institutions because, as Paul Krugman writes, his party retained popularity, much of it based on people being content with the economy:

Since taking power in 2010 Viktor Orban and Fidesz, the ruling party, have systematically undermined democratic institutions, creating a de facto one-party state. But the process has been gradual and relatively nonviolent: Salami tactics that sliced off effective opposition a bit at a time rather than tanks in the streets and detention camps.

Why did Orban take a gradualist approach to destroying democracy? Partly, no doubt, because too overt a power grab might finally have roused the rest of the European Union from its slumber. But it’s also true that Fidesz had the luxury of time because until recently the party remained quite popular with the Hungarian public.

Some of this popularity may have resulted from Fidesz’s takeover of the news media. But it was also true that for a long time, Orban could claim to have made Hungary prosperous. He took power at a time of extremely high unemployment: Hungary, like much of the European periphery, was caught up in the disastrous slump caused by Europe’s debt panic. And he was able to preside over a large fall in unemployment as austerity was relaxed.

As Krugman also notes in comparing Trump to Orban, “It's now clear, by contrast, that Trump and MAGA don’t have the luxury of time. Trump’s approval has already cratered.”

Trump has less than four years and yet he’s far more unpopular than those autocrats—and the historical figures like Hitler—at the same point in time as he’s trying to consolidate power. So, since his tariffs are causing consumer uncertainty and will soon spike inflation, and since he can’t cut interest rates, the one thing he was clinging to that he hoped would help him push an aura of a booming economy were the jobs numbers.

But now that has been shattered too.

Trump is underwater on most issues. His mass deportations have brought his approval on immigration—one of the issues he ranked highest on—down to 35% in the Gallup poll. The Epstein saga has completely blindsided him. The one thing he probably hoped he could turn his approval around on more quickly than other issues was the economy, since it’s an issue on which he once ranked high and got him elected.

The new jobs numbers and the revisions of recent months’ reports, however, more than anything else, have economists pointing to a recession. That means Trump’s approval dropping further. And that means the resistance builds.

The numbers are indeed a mortal threat and Trump is desperate for sure, causing him to engage in further reckless actions. But unlike the autocrats he’s emulating, a sizable majority of people are not happy just seven months after he’s taken power, and many of them are increasingly angry. That’s what we must continue to harness.