Louisiana Voice

I read an interesting quote that does more to define the futility of debating one who is so steeped in their unquestioning dedication to the MAGA myth as to render logic and the ability to think for oneself meaningless than anything else I’ve read or heard:

“It’s fun to talk, but without comprehension and compassion, it’s all just hot gas under a red cap.”

Donald Trump is notorious for letting his alligator mouth overload his jaybird ass and the list of his broken or ignored promises is both long and significant—significant only if you ever took him seriously in the first place.

For example, more than 50 times during the 2024 campaign, he said he would END THE WAR IN UKRAINE  “on day one.” Well, we can read every day how that promise has aged with time.

And who could forget his accusation that Kamala Harris would lead us into war but under his presidency, there would be “no new wars”?

Trump says it’s not a war, it’s a “military operation.” Oh, well then…

Here are a few of his other promises:

• Reduce the cost of gasoline below $2 a gallon;
• Cut the federal budget every year;
• Release Epstein files;
• Create a victim’s compensation fund of “migrant crime” from seized gang assets;
• Ban federal workers from taking jobs at companies they regulated;
• Create deregulated “freedom cities” on federal land;
• Award green cards to those on student visas who graduate from U.S. Colleges;
• Place a 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates;
• Require only paper ballots for elections;
• Cut energy costs by 40 percent in first year;
• Reduce prices for groceries, cars and other consumer items;
• Create “tent cities” to address homelessness;
• Count all votes by election night;
• Abolish the Education Department;
• Finish the border wall;
• End veteran homelessness;
• Leave Social Security and Medicare unchanged;
• Not support a federal abortion ban;
• Construct an Iron Dome-like missile defense system for the U.S.;
• Fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “immediately”;
• Create a task force on chronic health problems such as autism, autoimmune disorders and obesity;
• Spare families from in vitro fertilization costs;
• Save TikTok;
• Make interest on car loans tax deductible;
• End taxation on tips;
• End taxation on overtime;
• End taxation on Social Security;
• Enact tax credit for family caregivers;
• Adopt four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports;
• Provide a middle-class, upper-class, lower-class, business-class big tax cut;
• Cut cost of prescription drugs by 1500 percent;
• Claimed and recanted claims about Iran and Strait of Hormuz too many times to count

Surely, with all the promises made, there are some he kept, right?

Right. Here are some of those:

• Release remaining classified and redacted files on JFK assassination;
• Declare national emergency to spur more drilling, pipelines, etc.;
• Signed sweeping pardons for participants in Jan. 6 insurrection of U.S. Capitol;
• Made tax cuts for the wealth permanent;
• Provide record military funding;
• Revoke federal initiatives on DEI;
• Carry out largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history;
• Halt Chinese purchase of U.S. land;
• Ban trans women from participating in women’s sports;
• Revoke temporary legal status of Haitians;
• Construct National Garden of American Heroes;
• Restore, expand travel ban;
• Empower president to remove federal workers through Schedule F;
• Withdraw from WHO;
• Cut funding for NPR;
• Reinstate military’s transgender ban;
• Designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;
• Commute sentence of “Silk Road” website operator Ross Ulbricht;
• Leave the Paris Climate Accord.

So, yes, Trump did keep some promises. But while he was issuing pardons to drug lords and rioters and firing federal workers, he was busy ignoring promises like reducing inflation, ending wars and cutting the federal budget.

While eying cuts to Social Security and Medicare, he was generously extending lucrative tax breaks to Billionaires.

And while he kept his promise to cut funding for NPR and to withdraw from the World Health Organization, he conveniently forgot his promise to cut prices of groceries, housing and gasoline.

Gasoline has not dropped below $3 a gallon as he promised, but not to fear; he increased military spending to record levels—all while banning transgenders in the military.

And I almost got through this entire recitation of broken promises without once mentioning the Reflecting Pool and the 250^th U.S. birthday National State Fair debacles or Trump’s profiteering off the presidency to the tune of $1.2 billion even as the rest of us—his detractors and supporters alike—struggled to make it from payday to payday.

Almost.