Um Americans, the White House thinks you’re idiots, and definitely can’t read a graph
The Trump administration always just assumes its audience won’t check the propaganda they post to boast about their “achievements.” But hey, not all of us dropped out of school to be a full time MAGA maniac. We can at least read a graph.
On Jan. 30, the White House posted a graph on its official X account celebrating an increase in U.S. steel production. The headline was confident, the colors were dramatic, and the message was clear. Our steel production is apparently surging. The problem is that the chart only works if you don’t read it.
The graphic compares total U.S. steel production in 2024 versus 2025, measured in metric tons. The bars appear wildly different in height, almost like the production doubled. But look closely at the y-axis: it doesn’t start at zero. It starts around 80 million metric tons and ends just above 81.8. And that compressed scale is doing all the heavy lifting for the White House.
Once you actually read the numbers, the story changes. The red bar for 2024 sits a little above 80.8 Mt. The green bar for 2025 reaches roughly 81.7–81.8 Mt. That’s an increase of about 0.9 to 1.1 million metric tons, or roughly 1% growth. It’s definitely not the explosive rebound the visual implies.
This is a classic graph trick. But we don’t know if the person behind the White House account missed it or used it deliberately. By truncating the y-axis, small changes look enormous. Like the green bar here is stretched to scream “boom.” It’s not illegal or rare. But it is something you learn not to do in middle school if the goal is honesty rather than persuasion.
Whether or not the misrepresentation was deliberate, social media users noticed the dirty trick immediately. “That graph is a chart crime,” one user wrote. Another added, “How to lie with statistics 101: Don’t start the y-axis from zero.” Others were less charitable: “Do you think your supporters are stupid?” And the answer to that is probably yes. Because, as one user asked, “Why lie when it is so easy to be proven wrong?” The only logical answer is, they thought we’d never notice.
One user also pointed out that production appears to be roughly back to recent historical levels, not a dramatic breakout. That’s broadly consistent with publicly available steel production data from the early 2020s. Back then, U.S. output has hovered in the low-80-million-ton range with modest year-to-year variation. So, this is not the kind of shift that warrants visual fireworks.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean that a 1% increase is meaningless. Incremental growth in heavy industry matters. But if the number can’t sell itself without optical tricks, that’s usually a sign the achievement isn’t as headline-worthy as advertised. And it raises an uncomfortable question: if the growth is real, why exaggerate it?
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