The Art of Retail Gaslighting

Trump boasts that this year’s 3.4% increase in holiday retail sales is the highest in US history, somehow ignoring the fact that only last year those sales increased 5.1%. You would think a very stable genius would understand that 5.1 is a bigger number than 3.4. You would think a president would have advisors who could explain this to him. Apparently not.

The 3.4% number comes from a report on holiday shopping published by Mastercard, which also revealed that online sales make up a record high share (almost 15%) of overall sales.  Trump likely latched onto the word “record” in media reports, like the one from Reuters whose headline read “Record online sales give U.S. holiday shopping season a boost.” Maybe Trump fixated on the word “record” and completely missed “online”. You can’t expect him to read every word, after all.  (A very plausible alternative theory is that Trump knows exactly what he's doing and willfully ignored the finer points of the report to suit his purposes.) 

So, perhaps without knowing it, Trump touts a record holiday season for e-commerce -- which, let's face it, ain’t nothing, and is obviously the undisputed and unstoppable trend in the retail business. Good for the likes of Amazon (which pays no sales tax, and incidentally is run by Jeff Bezos, whom Trump hates). Good for those communities where e-commerce firms operate (for example, just seven locations in Georgia, in the case of Amazon).  

Meanwhile, sales in brick-and-mortar stores, located in every community in America, didn’t look nearly as rosy, rising only 1.2%. But Trump doesn’t brag about that. Actually, it’s nothing to brag about.

Hannity Dishonesty

One thing that I suppose helps Trump supporters sleep at night is the notion that, despite his rotten, ill-tempered, chaotic, ignorant, conniving, and dishonest nature, Trump has one saving grace – he is giving a tremendous boost to the economy. Or, at least, that’s what he never hesitates to claim he is doing. 

And, in some ways that Democrats may be reluctant to acknowledge, there might be something to some of these claims. Some economic indicators are looking better under Trump. But not necessarily all. 

One such indicator is GDP. During the campaign, Trump loved to blast Obama for the sluggish economy and highlighted the fact that annual GDP growth never rose above 3% in Obama’s eight years. Trump promised that, with him in charge of the economy, growth would go up to 4%, maybe even to 6%. This pie-in-the-sky promise was also touted by Trump’s number one bootlicker, Sean Hannity. Naturally.

So, it’s no wonder that when, back in November, the Atlanta Fed made an eye-watering prediction of 4.5% growth for the final quarter of last year, Hannity latched onto this bit of optimistic news like a dog on a bone, repeating it often on his radio show. (Hannity generally repeats the same talking points a lot, ad nauseum, in fact.) 

This prediction was just what Hannity wanted to hear. He effused:

“Yesterday, the Atlanta Fed projected that GDP growth for the fourth quarter will be 4.5%. Obama never once in his presidency for a year had 3% GDP growth. Not once. The only president in history.”

You can see how Hannity was parroting Trump’s line about Obama’s shoddy GDP track record. 

Now, the preliminary results for 2017 are in. The Atlanta Fed’s 4.5% growth rate for Q4 didn’t materialize. Instead, it came in at only a more down-to-earth 2.6%, forcing Hannity to create some positive spin by misleading his listeners. He does this all the time. Here’s what he said this week: 

“When you look at these economic statistics, they’re mind-blowing. Lowest unemployment rate we have had now in decades. The best economic growth. It could have been better for the final quarter of the year. The fourth quarter it was 2.6%. But the previous two quarters were better than Obama had in any two given years.” 

The last sentence is where Hannity’s supreme dishonesty is on full display. He’s trying to deflect from the disappointment of 2.6% growth by pointing to the Q2 and Q3 rates of 3.1% and 3.2%, respectively. 

As I’ve written before, he’s comparing apples to oranges. It’s true that Obama never had a year of 3.1% or 3.2% growth.  But neither has Trump. Not yet. Hannity is implying that Obama never saw the kind of quarterly growth that we've seen so far under Trump. That’s a lie. 

In fact, under Obama there was a quarter of 3.1% (Q3 2013), and a quarter of 3.2% (Q1 2015). Plus, two quarters of 3.9%, one quarter of 4.0%, two quarters of 4.6%, and one quarter of 5.2%. That’s eight quarters as good, or much better, than Trump as achieved thus far. 

Of course, Hannity also failed to mention the annual rate for 2017, which is preliminarily estimated to be 2.3%. That’s not quite the 3%, 4% or 6% Americans were promised. And he would be even less eager to mention that Obama had annual rates higher than 2.3% during three years of his presidency (2010, 2014, 2015). 

Now, 2.6% growth perhaps isn’t too bad. And perhaps this will turn out to be the nadir of the Trump economy. Perhaps 2018 will turn out much better, maybe even be tremendous. 

Maybe. But, still it always pisses me off when someone like Hannity so obviously twists the truth in order to gloss over unwelcome news that runs counter to his narrative – and most of his audience no doubt swallow it all without blinking.  And that is sad.  

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

This seems like a case of counting your chickens before they hatch.  

Donald Trump has been making a lot of hay (farming metaphor #2) over the fact that the Q2 GDP growth was recently revised up to 3.0% (from 2.6%). He, and sycophants like Sean Hannity, go on and on and on about how Obama was the only president never to reach a GDP increase of that level.  

Of course, he’s trying to make an apples and oranges comparison here (fruit metaphor, so kinda farming-related). What Trump is referring to is the fact that, during the Obama years, GDP growth never rose above 2.9%. This is true. Growth for a full calendar never reached 3% under Obama. But that hasn’t happened under Trump either. Not yet. If it ever does.  

But that’s talking about annual GDP growth. What Trump has presided over is 3% GDP growth in a single quarter. Obama did the same in eight different quarters during his two terms. In fact, in Q3 2015 GDP grew by 4.6%, a much bigger number than 3.0%.  

Trump may well see the kind of growth numbers he’s been promising – though somehow lately it seems he’s forgotten how during the campaign he swore he’d conjure up a GDP growth of FOUR percent, not a measly three percent.  

Anyway, seems to me that excessive crowing (barnyard fowl metaphor) about one discrete quarter of 3% growth involves a risk of backfiring. What goes up can come down. 

After the unemployment rate for May was announced (4.3%), Trump bragged about how it was the lowest jobless rate in 16 years and was unexpectedly robust. (Keep in mind that while Obama was president, Trump claimed such statistics were “fake”.) The next month, the rate ticked back up to 4.4%.  What comes down can also go up. 

Rushing to take credit for good outcomes you have dubious influence over can come back to bite you on the ass (the tender body part, not the farmer’s beast of burden), if those outcomes start to sour further down the road.  On the other hand, if that happens maybe you can just start shoveling more horseshit – which, as we all know, is one chore Farmer Don excels at.