It’s no secret that The New York Times and Donald Trump really, really, REALLY don’t like each other. So when 2017 came in, it was a question of if, not when, the Old Grey Lady would unload on the Donald in the New Year. It turns out that we only had to wait one day. In Monday morning’s edition, The Times’ editorial board flayed the president-elect for hoodwinking the American people on bringing jobs back to our shores–and also upbraided a number of corporations for helping Trump in his latest con.
The Times heaped particular scorn on Trump’s claim that Sprint was so inspired by his new vision for the country that it will bring 5,000 jobs back to the United States. As we now know, this doesn’t withstand cursory scrutiny. These jobs are actually part of a deal Sprint had already announced in October.
So why is Sprint going along with this con, or at the very least raised no objection? Well, the editorial board has a theory. Back in 2013, Sprint tried to merge with T-Mobile, but the deal collapsed a year later when it became apparent that regulators were determined to maintain four nationwide cell phone carriers. However, Trump is much more open to allowing megamergers in the telecom industry; many of his top advisers have openly called for loosening antitrust enforcement.
The Times fears that if a Trump administration lets a Sprint/T-Mobile merger go through, it would be a textbook case of “crony capitalism.” Now who does that remind you of? Oh yeah, Russia–a country where crony capitalism has been the order of the day for most of the millennium. The Times has a sobering warning for Trump in case he’s even thinking about giving the green light to this potential deal–it would do tremendous long-term damage to the economy. Not only would prices go up, but the merged company would almost certainly shed thousands of jobs as dead weight.
Then again, The Times isn’t all that surprised, given the parallels with Trump’s other major “job saving” con–his supposed role in keeping a thousand jobs at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis from going to Mexico. Never mind that only 800 jobs are actually being saved, and many of them are going to be lost to automation in any event. And never mind that Trump didn’t lift a finger to save jobs at a plant owned by Carrier parent United Technologies just a hundred miles away. All things considered, The Times thinks Trump is “easily distracted by shiny objects” and photo ops, and isn’t really interested in actually doing something that would actually help workers. And it looks like at least two corporations are willing to go along–even if their own workers get screwed over.
Trump’s distaste for The Times is well documented. Indeed, he has vowed to use the libel laws to bludgeon The Times and any other paper that dares cross him into silence. But as I write this on Monday night, Trump hasn’t said a word. Hmmm–perhaps he knows the Old Grey Lady has him busted.
(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
