In a move that shocked precisely nobody, Macy’s is closing seven stores and laying off 5,000 workers across the country. In addition to being predictable because of the rise of e-commerce and the never-ending retail slump that likely ends with brick-and-mortar becoming a thing of the past, it’s predictable because Macy’s originally announced this plan in August of 2016. The only real news to come out of this was the naming of 7 of the 100 stores that are doomed under the original plan.
The particularly astute among you will notice that August 2016 is several months before January 20th, 2017, which is when President Donald J. Trump took office. In fact, it’s even a few months before November 8th, 2016, when Donald Trump was elected. So why are MSN, USA Today, and others acting like this is news today?
Simple. There’s been too much good news in the financial sector since Trump was elected, and, specifically, far too much good news since he signed his tax bill into law. Time to incense the readers a bit. Predictably, it worked.
That’s just three of the hundreds of social media comments on the MSN article. Of course, buried, way deep in the MSN and USA TODAY articles are some other interesting facts.
- Macy’s digital sales volume is up double digits
- Even Macy’s brick-and-mortar volume is up 1.1% since Trump’s inauguration, due to the “overall strong economy”
So, lemme get this right…the layoffs were announced in 2016, the economy is booming, Macy’s has been doing better since Trump took office, and yet, somehow the layoffs are Trump’s fault? On the day that the Dow hit 25,000 for the first time in history?
Hey, angry social media mob, why not direct some of your anger at your liberal friend, Jeff Bezos? His Amazon is the reason why nobody shops at the mall anymore. Have you been in a Macy’s lately? You could play a game of tackle football in the men’s department without hitting anybody! Trump can’t make people stop shopping online—even Macy’s is benefitting from this trend. They can sell more goods without having to hire people to work their cavernous, far-too-large retail stores. And let’s not forget that under Fearless Leader Obama, Macy’s announced even bigger cuts.
How do you justify your bizarre cognitive dissonance that “manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back” but “retail jobs going away is Trump’s fault?” Hell, Macy’s dumped all of Trump’s clothing lines—he can’t help them now! Maybe if they’d kept them, Trump supporters would be MAGAing all over their stores (probably not)!
With headlines and articles like this, it’s no wonder that Trump is obsessed with the “dishonest, unfair media.” From his perspective, that’s exactly what they are.