E.J. Antoni’s Nomination Is Not About Being Right—It’s About Being Joyfully Wrong in the Service of Power
- john raymond
- Aug 12
- 2 min read
It does not matter whether E.J. Antoni has ever been right about anything in his professional life. His appointment to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not a reward for competence, insight, or methodological rigor. It is a selection for loyalty—a signal that the purpose of the office is no longer to measure reality, but to bend it.
Antoni’s career has been defined not by the disciplined pursuit of truth, but by the gleeful performance of error when error serves the narrative of those in power. His economic arguments have been routinely detached from mainstream empirical consensus, but that is not a flaw in this context—it is the very qualification sought. In authoritarian governance, being wrong is not a hazard; it is a credential.
To be “joyfully wrong” is to advance positions whose factual bankruptcy is obvious to any competent observer, yet to deliver them with conviction and pride, thereby proving both loyalty and immunity to the constraint of evidence. Antoni’s nomination to helm the BLS means the agency will not be led by a statistician seeking to improve accuracy, but by a political operative willing to suspend the release of jobs data if those data embarrass the regime.
This is not about policy disagreements or methodological debates. It is about replacing the idea of statistical independence with the reality of narrative obedience. Antoni will do what he is told. He will not safeguard the integrity of economic measurement; he will safeguard the image of those who appointed him.
And that is the point. In systems where truth threatens power, truth must be smothered. Antoni’s function is not to fix the data—it is to ensure the data never again become a tool of change in the hands of the voting public. The danger is not merely that he will be wrong; it is that he will be wrong on purpose, smiling as he does it, because being joyfully wrong in the service of power is the job Trump wants of him.
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