Skip to main content

Don Jr. gets an "A" in riding coattails, an "F" in math

Donald Trump, Jr. took to Twitter to defend his father's record on minorities, as he posted this tweet:

"If over his entire presidency Obama had accomplished 10% of what @realDonaldTrump for these groups the left would anoint him emperor for life. When Trump does it in less than 2 years it's Blah Blah Blah. What a joke!"

I think it's safe to assume Don Jr. is speaking in reference to the fact that unemployment among African-Americans is at the lowest rate ever recorded, dipping to under 6%. But as usual, a Trump isn't telling the whole story and is largely taking credit for someone else's work.

Like every other demographic, black unemployment rose during the Great Recession, peaking at above 15% in 2010. It's been going down ever since, dipping to 12.5% in 2013, 10% in 2015, and roughly 7.5% when Obama left office. So black unemployment went from 17.5% to 7.5% under President Obama, a decrease of 57%. Meanwhile, it's decreased from 7.5% to 6% under President Trump, a decrease of 20% or 37% less than what was achieved under Obama. If Obama had accomplished 10% of what Donald Trump has with regard to African-American unemployment, the unemployment rate would have dropped from 17.5% to 17.3%. Crazily enough, it dropped to 7.5%.

This tactic is very commonplace for the Trumps. Unemployment numbers have been trending downward since the economy started recovering under President Obama. Stock numbers have been trending upward. Job-creation numbers have gone from -800,000 per month to +150,000 to +350,000 per month. Donald Trump can take credit all he likes, the economy didn't just magically turnaround with the snap of his fingers when he was sworn in on January 20th of 2017. These positive economical trends started under President Obama and have been continuing ever since. Therefore he should get the bulk of the credit. When an NFL team has a long successful run and then has to hire a new coach for whatever reason, this new coach isn't all of a sudden the reason for the team's past successes. Chances are he'll have an easier time attaining success, at least in the short-term, than other coaches around the league, but this in no way means it's due to his scouting, work ethic, and/or philosophy that the team is successful in the span. We're not going to know how successful or unsuccessful his coaching is until multiple years have passed. The same holds true for Donald Trump, and the fact of the matter is, from what I've seen thus far anyway, if Trump achieves 10% of what Obama achieved on any front, it'll come as quite the surprise. 

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-jr-says-obama-would-have-been-made-emperor-life-if-hed-done-10-1331186

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/lns14000006

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Boycotting jukeboxes because of TouchTunes

I love music and enjoy hitting the bar(s) over the weekend, so naturally, when the mood strikes me, I've never been coy about playing some songs on the jukebox. This past Thursday, a friend of mine turned 50, so several friends of her's, including myself, all met up to celebrate the occasion. At around 9:30, a friend of mine and I both chipped in $5 to play some songs on the jukebox. Four hours and 231 skips later, we gave up on hearing the songs we had selected, and went home knowing we had just wasted $5. This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened to me (and many others), and due to that, I'll be boycotting jukeboxes. Why? The scam known as TouchTunes. You see, here's how the plot typically breaks down. A person (or group of people) downloads the TouchTunes app on his/her phone, consumes one too many adult beverages, and due to this, has less care for spending extra money to hear the songs of their choosing right NOW. That's the thing with TouchTun...

Face guarding is legal in college football and the NFL

I just wanted to remind fans and announcers especially, that face guarding is legal in both college football and the NFL. It all comes down to contact. So long as a defender doesn't make contact with an intended receiver, he doesn't have to turn around to play the ball. I can't tell you how many times every week I hear announcers talk about face guarding being a penalty. It's not. I even heard one announcer yesterday state, "If the defender doesn't turn around and play the ball, the ref will call pass interference every time." That's simply not true. Courtesy of referee Bill LeMonnier, he says this with regard to the rule at the college level (answered on 8/12/13): "NCAA rules on pass interference require the face guarding to have contact to be a foul. No contact, no foul by NCAA rules." In the NFL rule book, this is written:  "Actions that constitute defensive pass interference include but are not limited to: (a) Contact by a ...