Cooking the Books, Moving the Goalposts: Why Americans Are No Longer Buying the Media’s Spin

My late father (William I. Greener, Jr.) often would say, “Never underestimate the wisdom of the American people.”  He knew a little about communications, having served as Deputy White House Press Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Ford Administration.  He staunchly believed what you had to say came before deciding on how to say it.  Substance over form.

The goal in a democracy starts with being on same side as the public when it comes to the issues of the day.  Cooking the books or moving the goal posts in an effort to prevail has proven to be a losing approach.

This inability to truthfully present facts, coupled with inconsistent standards to evaluate matters, is the box that Democrats, and their fellow travelers in the legacy media, are currently trapped.

If you had no other source of information than the legacy linear media or Democrat talking heads, you would likely believe the Trump Presidency has been met with solid opposition from the public.  You would be operating under the premise that Trump personally and his agenda are being rejected by American voters.  There is a slight problem with this.  It is otherwise known as utter and complete BS.

In fact, according to the recently released Rasmussen poll, compared to the last 20 years, “the percentage of people who say the US is headed in the Right Direction has never been higher than today” at 49 percent.  The approval rating for President Trump sits at 52 percent.  Meanwhile, the approval rating for Congressional Democrats hovers between 25 and 30 percent.

What about all those polls claiming the Administration is in the toilet with voters?  Take a look at the math.  50 percent voted for Trump in 2024.  If your sample only has 37 percent who fall into this category, shockingly, the data is not positive for the President.

Are you old enough to remember when the chattering class pointed to the decline in the stock market as proof that “the President’s tariff program is a failure?”  Me too.  Did you know that April closed with the market virtually at the same number as it had started?  Shockingly, the legacy media has not reported this reality with the same energy as the earlier declines.

Remember when the Biden Administration proudly announced jobs numbers, and the media loudly applauded?  They reported this as proof the economy was really humming along due to the Administration’s policies?  Tiny problem, the numbers were fiction.

They announced a gain of almost 400,000 jobs from July through September of last year.  Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its revised numbers, suggesting none of those jobs ever existed.  After all, despite the happy talk from the White House and their pals in the media, there was a drop of 598,000 nonfarm payrolls from March 2023 through March 2024.  From March through June of last year, 398,000 jobs were supposed to have been added.  Oops.  Actually, 163,000 jobs were lost.  There’s plenty more, but you get the picture.

If cooking the books is not an option, just move the goal posts.  When the Biden economy was in the tank, what happened?  Democrats and the media marched out their “experts” to argue we needed to change the definition of a recession.  For decades, two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth equaled a recession.  Suddenly, when this happened while Biden was President, we needed a more nuanced approach to things.  Otherwise, they would have to stipulate that a recession was real.

The trophy for all of this will likely always be how Democrats and the legacy media approached the subject of President Biden’s cognitive ability to do his job.  In real time, those of us who argued that it was beyond argument that he was not capable were treated as right-wing haters.  Now, the rats are jumping ship.  Senior officials who could have put country ahead of power now openly admit he was unfit long before the debate debacle in June of last year.  The media that should have been reporting on all of this at the time instead matched the fervor of Democratic partisans.  Now, they are giving themselves awards for “uncovering” how the dastardly Democrats deceived them.

The American public clearly sees what is happening.  Our fact-checking zealots have no trouble cooking the books or moving the goalposts.  The longer Democrats and the media persist in their practice of doing this, the more quickly they contribute to their own very rapid demise.

Common Sense: Never underestimate the wisdom of the American public.  What they see with their own eyes will always win over falsehoods and changing the rules to suit a political point of view.