Facts are enemies of the people

THE US economy added 10.3 million jobs during former US president Barack Obama's second term, or 214,000 a month. This brought the official unemployment rate below 5 per cent, and a number of indicators suggested that by late last year we were fairly close to full employment. But Donald Trump insisted that the good news on jobs was "phoney", that America was actually suffering from mass unemployment.

Then came the first employment report of the Trump administration, which at 235,000 jobs added looked very much like a continuation of the previous trend. And the administration claimed credit: Job numbers, Mr Trump's press secretary declared, "may have been phoney in the past, but it's very real now". Reporters laughed - and should be ashamed of themselves for doing so. For it really wasn't a joke. The US is now governed by a president and party that fundamentally don't accept the idea that there are objective facts. Instead, they want everyone to accept that reality is whatever they say it is.

So we're just supposed to believe the president if he says, falsely, that his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever; if he claims, ludicrously, that millions of votes were cast illegally for his opponent; if he insists, with no evidence, that his predecessor tapped his phones.