Many things boggle my mind when it comes to Americans who voted for and support Donald Trump, but I’m sure many Americans (though far fewer, according to the latest polling data) think the same about my opposition to him and his administration.
But one of the most incomprehensible things is how often Trump has repeatedly and relentlessly failed to fulfill his promises, especially when they are completely within his power and he declares them with such certainty.
For example
He promised to build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it.
The wall was never completed, even though Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress for two whole years during this first administration, and Mexico never paid a dime.
More importantly, he never even attempted to extract payment from Mexico.
He also promised during his first campaign — many, many times — to never play golf while in office, criticizing President Obama for doing so.
Yet he has played more golf than any President ever — more than 300 days of golf during his presidency, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions in travel and security.
He has repeatedly promised — more than a dozen times — that his bigger, better replacement for the Affordable Care Act is just weeks away, but he has never produced that plan. He promises that it’s “almost ready” but has never produced a single thing.
He promised during his first campaign to release his tax returns, but he never did, breaking decades of precedent in the process. His returns were only released later via legal and congressional action.
He promised to eliminate the national debt in eight years. Instead, the national debt increased by nearly $7.8 trillion during his presidency — one of the largest increases under any President, thanks in large part to his 2017 tax cuts.
In the most recent campaign:
He promised to end the Russia-Ukraine War in a day, and later, a week. We are now months into the Presidency, and the war rages on.
Just last week, he said that his promise to end the war in a week was “an exaggeration.”
Also known as a lie.
He promised to lower prices on day one — literally thousands of times. In reality, inflation has increased since he took office, and with the tariffs, it will almost certainly rise further.
Even if you love what Trump has promised the American people, you must admit he doesn’t actually keep many of those promises.
He doesn’t even keep the simple, very doable ones, like not playing golf or releasing his taxes, and the ludicrous ones, like Mexico paying for the wall he never built.
No matter how you slice it, Trump is either lying to his voters or utterly incompetent in terms of achieving many of his goals.
