Promises Promises (Reprised)

Image courtesy Business Insider

Back in January 2017, gentle reader, I made a promise to review Trump's promises annually and report back here. He'd made so many, so I felt it was the least I could do. 

I got distracted and failed to do that, so I apologise, but given that he was a one-term president, it may be constructive to now belatedly keep that original promise. Hindsight always makes some things more obvious, and at least I will have kept my promise.

There were so many, and I don't have time to check all of them.There's nothing to stop you from doing that and reporting back in the comments, of course.

Perhaps the most contentious was that he would build a wall on the southern border, and Mexico would pay for it. These are the first two listed in the linked post.

The actual outcome is simultaneously insignificant and outrageous. A March 2021 review of work on the wall revealed that a total of 47 miles (76 kilometres) of barrier had been constructed where none had previously existed. The southern border is 1954 miles (3145 kilometres) long.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that what has been done has actually made people smuggling easier, as the roads built to get machinery to the work sites along the wall construction have provided new access paths for the immigrants and those smuggling them. And Mexico hasn't put one cent towards it.

On a number of occasions, Trump declared that he would "get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something so much better..."

That's another promise that has gone through to the keeper, as a result of the votes of the late John McCain and two other nervous Republicans. McCain didn't come across as nervous, by the way. A better word to describe his demeanour is "resolute", an aspect of behaviour that has been absent in Republicans since Trump emerged.

Some of his more bizarre promises are worth revisiting. There was the one about "heavily surveilling mosques", and another about prosecuting Hillary Clinton for using a private email server whilst Secretary of State. The irony about this one is that Trump is under threat of prosecution now for his instigation of the January 6th incursion on the Capitol. To promote a cliche - the worm has turned.

Even when initially making a promise ("leave troops in Afghanistan because it's such a mess") he felt free to reverse it and negotiate a rapid withdrawal with the Taliban, leaving Biden to pick up the pieces. The fact that he blindsided his own military is a major contributing factor to the debacle. 

He also promised to "bring back the American dream". Instead he produced a dystopian nightmare. And that's without reference to his mishandling of the pandemic. Remind me about the statistics for American deaths.

Feel free, gentle reader, to point out any promises kept from the 76 listed in my original post. 

There must be one or two in there somewhere....