First Impressions Matter

Today we saw what the next four years will look like with the news on the Ford plant in Kentucky. So often the devil is in the details, but the truth could not be plainer. Ford Motor Company never planned to move either plants out of Kentucky or any jobs out of their Kentucky plants to Mexico. William Ford made that clear over the many months that candidate DT claimed otherwise. Ford, like any company, can and does shift around how many vehicles of a certain type are produced at a particular plant. Production of the Ford Escape will be substituted for projection of Lincolns that will be moved to Mexico.

But first impressions matter and today's tweets from DT to the true believers will make them think that even before assuming the high powers of office, DT is already improving their lot by saving jobs. The mainstream media spoke with different voices on this today as they grapple with the problem that reporting will now require intensive, constant fact checking. Imagine if your job involved people making up lies more often than they tell the truth and you need to work hard to separate truth from falsehood. In business, anyone like that would be fired sooner rather than later. In our political environment, that person sometimes gets hired.

My own first impression of the Ford news was a misleading Yahoo! Finance headline that had me doubting my own understanding of the realities of the Kentucky facilities over these many months. Then I stopped my thoughts in their tracks...wait a second...I know what is going on here!

We can expect DT to take credit over and over when the news is good, make up good news when there isn't any, and shirk and shift responsibility over and over when the news is bad because that is how he operates. Some people get a lot of second chances at first impressions, judging by the reception they keep getting.