Individual people, sports teams, organizations, businesses, and government. What do all of these things have in common? Well, they have many things in common but one of them is that they all operate best when they make clear-eyed decisions that are based on factual information, and the best available evidence.
Think of how poorly a sports team would perform if they created a game plan while wrongly assuming that their injured star player would take the field.
Facts are our friends. They guide us through life, allowing themselves to be used for our reasonings but sometimes they also hurt us. There is one fact in particular that has been difficult for my ego to face and accept: I cannot hold my own in a fight against an adult bear. This is an obvious fact that is necessitated by how matter is arranged in the universe and it does not reflect poorly on me. I had enjoyed living in my fantasy, but I must accept it so that I avoid a deadly confrontation the next time I visit Yosemite.
The Trump administration should accept that facts are their friends, even when they hurt. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Lieutenant General Jeffery Kruse after he delivered the hard fact that the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were not quite as destructive as they had hoped. Last month, Trump fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer for delivering facts about a slump in job growth.
It would be easy to compare these anti-fact firings to how dictators and fascists in other countries have attempted to obfuscate the truth in order to present themselves in a flattering fashion – it certainly is a core strategy in the fascist playbook of how to control a population.
It would also be easy to point out that, if Trump cared about how the American people fared, he would ignore how unsavory facts portray his administration in favor of using those facts to make robust decisions for the common good.
If the Trump administration’s goal is to keep unflattering reports or facts secret while still issuing orders that take the facts of the matter into account, this is still not a permissible way that presidents should conduct themselves. The least of the problems is the actual act of lying to the public, although that is highly reprehensible all on its own.
Take for example the effectiveness of American bunker-busting bombs dropped on Iranian nuclear facilities. Under our current assumption about the administration’s intentions with respect to the truth and secrecy, let’s presume that Lieutenant General Kruse’s report was correct.
The Trump administration would have liked to keep this a secret from the public but nevertheless use the facts in the report to craft an appropriate approach to the Iranian problem. To the public, Trump would have communicated, as he did, that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were completely annihilated.
With Trump inventing his own narrative, the public would have mistakenly believed that, while the attacks may have been ill-advised and dangerous, at the very least they resulted in robbing Iran of the negotiation asset that advanced nuclear capabilities represent – depriving them of the information that they need to decide whether to exert pressure on their leaders.
Until recently, all agencies within the federal government at least attempted to operate with a healthy respect for the facts of the matter. The Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell has been basing his decision to hold interest rates steady on what sound economic policy suggests given the current state of the economy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how many knowledgeable voices inform Trump of this – he has insisted, often with threats, that Powell should base the interest rate on his personal whims rather than fact-based analysis.
Trump’s rivalry with the truth cannot be explained by a simple desire to control damaging information – it is a much more fundamental aspect of his constitution.
Recall that during his first term he mistakenly stated that Hurricane Dorian would strike Alabama. Instead of simply issuing a quick retraction, Trump went on a warpath against the truth, and infamously went so far as to present a weather map during a press conference that had been altered with a marker to include Alabama in the hurricane’s path.
In this instance, Trump had nothing to lose by acknowledging the truth. No one would have cared that he misspoke or used outdated information – it was an honest mistake that he could have rectified unremarkably. At what size does your ego prevent you from ever accepting that you’re wrong about anything?
Having an ego of that magnitude is bad for Trump but it’s worse for us when decisions are being made to preserve that ego rather than to protect America.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.
