Yes, Trump Has Kept His Promises, But That’s Not a Good Thing
As we will see here, Trump has kept the most important promises (explicit or implicit) that he made to the people who voted for him. An interesting question, though, is: Is the country better and stronger as a result?
Here’s what he’s made good on:
• Issuing massive tax cuts. Sure, the rank and file received almost nothing, and the ballooning national debt has to be paid by taxes imposed on our children, but he never actually said who the actual winners and losers would be. The ultra-rich are very happy.
• Getting tough on China. Again what he did here hasn’t helped America in any way, but he did start a trade war, driving up consumer prices, crippling American farmers, and pushing more manufacturing jobs overseas.
• Oppressing progressive causes, e.g., public education, women’s reproductive rights, the rights of gays, people of color, workers, etc. Trump has appointed two conservative judges to the Supreme Court, and his people have approved dozens at the federal appellate level.
• Putting corporate profit above the environment. The Trump administration has virtually destroyed the EPA and the environmental protections it formerly provided, and has made the U.S. a pariah on the world stage by pulling it from the Paris Climate Agreement. Accordingly, this nation is working against our planet’s efforts to defend human health from toxic chemicals, and to stem climate change, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity.
• Banning a great deal of international travel. Even before the pandemic, there were huge declines in U.S. college enrollment from foreign students, thus removing the world’s most capable young people from the country.
• Defunding education. Though the federal government provides only 8.3% of funding for public elementary and secondary schools, Trump has engineered reductions in direct funding, as well as numerous support programs associated with meals, childcare, and after-school programs.
• Expanding the military. Total military spending approaches $1 trillion annually (currently $934 billion). Recent upgrades to the nuclear arsenal and the abandonment of the intermediate range treaty with Russia have caused the scientists associated with the doomsday clock to set it at two minutes to midnight, closer to planetary destruction than it’s been since 1953.
• Removing and replacing Obamacare. Despite massive efforts Trump hasn’t gotten this accomplished, though he has successfully removed 27 million people from the rolls of healthcare.
• Protecting the range of hard right wing causes: absolute guns rights, white supremacy, police brutality against people of color, evangelical Christianity, etc. It must be said that Trump has kept his promises in all of these areas. While he may never have made explicit promises to support white supremacy, his implicit messages are clear, which is why he has the endorsement of the neo-Nazis, QAnon, the KKK, the alt-right, the Proud Boys, the Boogaloos, and other grassroots racist bodies.
• Getting tough on asylum-seekers from Latin America, and building the wall on the southern border. Though there has been very little progress towards completing the wall, the horrors that exist along the Mexican border are incomprehensible. Anyone who lacks any real conscience whatsoever, who, for instance, believes that the practices of torturing small children and forcing hysterectomies on women are good, should give Trump very good marks in terms of sheer cruelty here.
Thus it cannot be said that Trump didn’t keep his pledges, quite the contrary. The issue is the nature of those vows themselves.
Anyone who wants to live in a world that is democratic, constitutionally driven, healthy, green, science-based, just, tolerant, compassionate, and prosperous–rightfully puts Trump in the same category as Stalin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, and the rest of the most destructive people ever to walk the Earth. That each one kept his promises is irrelevant.
