Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 7
Trump’s reaction reinforced Op-Ed
This president has a credibility gap that is fast becoming a chasm, and one largely of his own making.
Following publication of an anonymous New York Times Op-Ed written by a member of his own administration that portrayed him as an unmoored, amoral leader whose decisions needed vetting - and sometimes ignoring - President Donald Trump struck back in way that, if anything, would give one further pause.
First was the setting - an event with sheriffs who had gathered Wednesday at the White House for an awards presentation in which they suddenly became the unwitting Greek chorus in the president’s paean to himself, one so fact-challenged that it bears a closer look.
Then came Trump’s unspooling of a list of achievements designed, in his mind, to lift him far above his detractors. It has become a common tactic for him, but more grandiose with each rendition. For instance: “Nobody has done what this administration has done in terms of getting things passed.” This has been repeated often enough that it merits some context. President Lyndon Johnson - a man of no small ego - pushed through landmark civil rights and voting rights acts, a major tax cut, a major immigration bill that removed racial and ethnic barriers, created Head Start, enacted Medicare and Medicaid and more, with far less back-patting.
Trump laid claim to creating nearly 4 million jobs in 20 months, a figure he previously has called “unthinkable.” The fact is, President Barack Obama in the previous 20-month period could boast 4.3 million jobs created. Both presidents have enjoyed the benefits of one of the longest economic recoveries in history.
Aside from the many outright falsehoods this president has told, Trump routinely takes the nugget of a fact, strips it of context, embellishes beyond all reason, then rolls it out in an attempt to elevate himself above all others. The practice may stir crowds at his call-and-response rallies, but does little to elevate his stature among those who know better. At the sheriffs’ event, he made an oft-repeated claim of “more Americans now employed than ever recorded in our history.” There’s a simple explanation for that. There are more Americans than ever. Adjusted for population growth, the U.S. hit peak workforce participation in the late 1990s.
Trump says that “3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since my election” and previously said such a drop was “something you haven’t seen in decades.” But such numbers frequently bounce up and down with the economy. The last such drop was 3.5 million, occurring between 2013 and 2016.
Trump again claimed to have “started the wall” that would separate the U.S. from Mexico. A Republican Congress has allocated no money for the massive project Trump proposed as a candidate.
Turning to the sheriffs, Trump said that “all of you people have benefited tremendously from the tax cuts.” What has become known since passage is that only the nation’s wealthiest can lay claim to benefits in the tremendous range. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has said that an average household earning between $50,000 and $75,000 would see about $870. A household with income of $1 million would get nearly $70,000.
He repeated the oft-debunked claim that the “failing” New York Times had been forced to apologize for its election coverage of him. The paper made no such apology. His poll numbers were “through the roof,” he said. Actually, each of the previous 11 presidents had higher approval numbers at this point in their terms than Trump. You have to go back to Harry Truman to find a president with a lower approval rating.
To dust off an old phrase, this president has a credibility gap that is fast becoming a chasm, and one largely of his own making. If he is to re-establish himself among his own Cabinet and the American people at large, a good first step might be to discard the hucksterism and discover the simple virtue of sticking to verifiable facts.
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The Free Press of Mankato, Sept. 8
Why it matters: A myriad of institutions have failed to deal with sex abuse openly and forthrightly, and they all pay a price for that failure.
It plays out in depressingly similar fashion time after time, at major universities and religious institutions and athletic organizations: Sex abuse reports downplayed, hidden, dismissed.
The grand jury report out of Pennsylvania last month, a brutally detailed accounting of decades of cover-ups and neglect by the Roman Catholic bishops of that state’s dioceses, is of a piece with Penn State University’s failure to deal with a sex abuser in the football program. With Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics funneling a stream of young victims to a predatory physician. With the University of Southern California failing to keep a school gynecologist from abusing students for decades.
It’s a rare week that passes without revelations of another significant institution that failed to take reports of sexual misconduct seriously. A megachurch near Chicago. The wrestling program at Ohio State. Congressmen and state legislators.
The proliferation of these revelations leads to the inevitable conclusion that these are not just isolated instances. Our public institutions have developed a common culture that prioritizes safeguarding the organization’s reputation and protecting the status of its leaders while disregarding the damage done when a predator emerges.
Such defensiveness is not only morally wrong, it is self-defeating. The presidents of Penn State, Michigan State and USC all lost their jobs over their mishandling of their schools’ scandals. USA Gymnastics is going through a series of leadership changes as that organization seems unable to come to grips with its complicity in the Larry Nassar scandal. The seemingly endless string of abuse revelations in Catholic dioceses all over the nation - all over the globe, really - have undermined the church’s status.
All these institutions would have done better to have acted promptly, thoroughly and transparently. The short-term pain would have been better than letting the problems fester.
Pennsylvania’s grand jury report may not be easily replicated elsewhere; few states have, as Pennsylvania does, an official empowered to convene a statewide grand jury investigation. But it seems likely that similarly thorough investigations elsewhere will find similar malfeasance.
A prominent lawyer involved in Minnesota’s priest-abuse cases called last month for Gov. Mark Dayton to convene a grand jury, but Minnesota’s governor lacks that authority. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese called for an outside review of bishops, an acknowledgement that the church’s own procedures lack credibility. The next Legislature should consider setting up a mechanism for such a broad investigation.
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Mesabi Daily News, Virginia, Sept. 4
Let’s make a deal
The Iron Range’s mining industry has come a long way since 2015, when a downturn ravaged the region’s largest employer and idled plants from Keewatin to Silver Bay - with the exception of Minorca Mine in Virginia - and put workers out of a job as their unions haggled with the companies on a new contract.
Today, the industry is humming thanks to tariffs enacted in 2016 and the Section 232 tariffs enacted by the Trump administration. Keetac opened last year after nearly two years idled by its parent company, U.S. Steel, which also reopened Granite City Works in Illinois this year.
Labor negotiations are vastly more complicated with the latter situation in mind. As the companies report increased profits on the heels of the industry’s upswing, the United Steelworkers are digging in and preparing for a potential strike as the sides appear far apart on a new deal.
This simply cannot happen.
The work done by the companies, the Steelworkers and local, state and federal politicians to right to ship and keep it moving during the bleak times three years ago are in danger of being flushed.
A deal needs to happen between the companies and the unions.
What that deal looks like is ultimately up to them, but the steel industry is in such good shape, that it is in no shape to take the impact of a strike or lockout that threatens to shut down operations.
The impact on the local communities would be heavy as workers tighten their belts. There’s plenty at stake for those workers and companies too, giving both sides plenty of incentive to get something done.
Our plea is that negotiations are done in good faith and with fairness at the forefront.
Iron Range mines have a chance to continue capitalizing on rare wins for an industry so cyclical in nature. But capitalizing means keeping the doors open and the ore shipping out.
It’s time to think of the communities and the people with the most to lose if things go further south. It’s time to make progress on a deal rather than prolonged stalemates and increasingly sharper tongues.
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