But in this White House, every day's news must be characterized as a spectacular success. So what to do when the fantasy doesn't match reality? First, you get rid of the messengers, as when Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after last month's bad jobs report. Next, you posit a conspiracy theory, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick did Friday, and assure the public that once the apostates have been purged, everyone will understand what a glorious utopia Trump is creating for the country. But when it comes to the economy, there's only so far you can get with spin to persuade people not to believe what they're experiencing in their own lives. Is your life better now under Trump's economy?

There's no doubt that political spin can work — the last 10 years are proof of that. But the greater the distance between reality and the story you're telling, the less persuasive it tends to be. It's one thing to convince the public that, say, a country is hiding weapons of mass destruction and another to tell them the economy is fine when no one is hiring. People only have to look at their own lives and communities to see how poor the economy is — and if anything, the public hasn't yet tuned in to just how bad things are going to get. Trump promised a manufacturing renaissance, but there are 78,000 fewer manufacturing jobs now than at the beginning of the year. Electricity prices are a perfect example of the limitations of the reality-distortion field in which Trump attempts to envelop the country. He promised in 2024 that he'd cut electric bills in half within a year, but instead, prices are rising. In short, if Trump had set out to intentionally sabotage the American economy, he couldn't have done much worse. Is Trump's promised economic, 'Golden Age' for America a hoax?