Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead — until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. “He cheated!” the losing child yells. “I’m the winner anyway!” he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship.

想象一下，一群五岁的孩子在玩棋盘游戏。规则清晰，目标公平，一个孩子逐渐领先——直到另一个孩子突然开始落后。这时麻烦就来了。“他作弊！”落后的孩子大喊。“反正我才是赢家！”他宣称。然后，顺理成章地，他掀翻了棋盘。在幼儿园的冲突解决中，我们知道会有这种行为。我们将其归因于孩子的成长。我们教育孩子们要有更好的体育精神。

What do we do when the president of the United States behaves this way? On Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn’t make Mr. Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping.

然而，当美国总统表现出这种行为时，我们该怎么办？周五，特朗普总统解雇了劳工统计局局长——这个国家负责记录就业、工资和生产力的日常记分员。原因何在？因为数据让特朗普很没面子。这些统计数据让人难堪。所以总统不只是质疑结果，还解雇了统计官员。这不是治理，这是在掀棋盘。

For over a century, the integrity of U.S. economic data has rested on a fragile but vital precept: independence. Agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis operate under the executive branch, but their mandates are to serve the truth, not the administration. Their job is to report what is, not what the White House wishes were true.

一个多世纪以来，美国经济数据的可靠性依赖于一个脆弱却至关重要的原则：独立性。像劳工统计局、人口普查局和经济分析局这样的机构虽隶属于行政部门，但其使命是为真相服务，而非为行政当局服务。它们的工作是报告事实，而不是白宫希望的事实。

Yes, legally, the president can fire the bureau’s commissioner. The position is not protected by statute. But like many pillars of democracy — free press, fair elections, impartial courts — what protects the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not law but a common set of assumptions about how government should function. A basic idea that says: Presidents don’t manipulate the scoreboard.

没错，从法律上讲，总统可以解雇该局局长。这个职位不受法规保护。但是，就像民主制度的许多支柱——新闻自由、公平选举、公正法庭——保护劳工统计局的不是法律，而是关于政府应如何运作的一套共识。一个基本理念是：总统不操纵数据。

Past presidents respected this boundary. Ronald Reagan didn’t fire the head of the agency when it reported double-digit unemployment during his first term. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama took bad news from official statistics on the chin. Mr. Trump has charted a different course. This is not his first tangle with truth. He has questioned unemployment numbers and dismissed Covid fatality figures as inflated. Removing the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief because the numbers were off narrative is a new breach. It is not only attacking the game; it is removing the referee.

历任总统都尊重这一界限。该机构在里根的第一个任期里报告了两位数的失业率，他没有解雇其负责人。克林顿、乔治·W·布什和奥巴马都坦然接受了官方统计数据中的坏消息。特朗普则走了一条不同的路。这不是他第一次与真相发生冲突。他曾质疑失业率数据，还驳斥新冠死亡人数被夸大。因数据与自己的说法不符而解雇劳工统计局局长，这是一种新的越界。这不仅是在攻击比赛本身，更是在撤掉裁判。

This may sound like inside baseball, of importance mostly to labor economists. But it’s not. The credibility of American statistics is foundational. It undergirds investor trust. It guides fiscal and monetary policy. It tells businesses when to hire, when to expand and when to hold. When those numbers are tainted or appear to be, the ripple effects are vast. Markets can lose faith in the data and in the country that produces it.

这听起来可能像是内行人才关心的问题，或者说只有劳动经济学家才看重。但事实并非如此。美国统计数据的可信度是根基所在。它支撑着投资者的信任，指导着财政和货币政策，告诉企业何时招聘、何时扩张、何时观望。当这些数据受到污染或看似不实的时候，连锁反应是巨大的。市场可能会对数据以及产生这些数据的国家失去信心。

Yes, the BLS made some retroactive changes to its May and June reports, sharply cutting its assessments of job growth. These kinds of revisions are routine as the BLS incorporates new data, even if these were particularly large. The job of counting is getting harder as the response rate to its surveys falls. But this isn’t malfeasance.

诚然，劳工统计局对5月和6月的报告做了一些追溯性修改，大幅下调了对就业增长的评估。这类修订是常规操作，因为劳工统计局会纳入新数据，即便这次的调整幅度特别大。随着调查回应率下降，统计工作确实越来越难。但这并非渎职。

What about citizens? When a government fires the umpire, we all have reason to wonder: What game are we playing? One danger certainly is that a future Bureau of Labor Statistics head might feel political pressure to fudge a jobs report. The deeper risk is cynicism, the quiet corrosion of faith in institutions. If we can’t believe the numbers, how do we believe anything?

那公民呢？当政府解雇“裁判”时，我们都有理由怀疑：我们到底在玩什么游戏？一个明显的风险是，未来的劳工统计局局长可能会感受到政治压力，被迫篡改就业报告。更深层的风险是根本上的怀疑，是对制度信念的悄然侵蚀。如果我们连数据都不能相信，那我们还能相信什么？

Most children learn that flipping the board doesn’t make them the winner. It just means the game is over. In a democracy, the same lesson holds. We need our referees. We need our scorekeepers. And most of all, we need leaders who understand that losing the game fairly is far more honorable than winning by force.

大多数孩子都会学到，掀翻棋盘不会让他们成为赢家，只会让比赛结束。在民主制度中，同样的道理也成立。我们需要裁判，需要记分员。最重要的是，我们需要领导者能够明白：公平地输掉比赛，远比靠强迫赢得比赛更光荣。

Why so? Because when presidents flip the board, it’s not just a game that ends. It’s the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor.

为什么？因为当总统掀翻棋盘时，结束的不只是一场比赛。民主的碎片也会散落一地。