Trump’s Hyped Expectations
And Under Performance
One of the things most people learn with early lessons of life is to temper expectations and then deliver good results. Better to pleasantly surprise people than be exposed as a windbag and fraud.
Donald J. Trump never learned that lesson. He constantly creates gargantuan expectations (“Best economy ever”, “Iran will unconditionally surrender”, “Tariffs will bring back American jobs and make us richer than ever,” “Tariffs will eventually eliminate the federal income tax”, etc, etc.). And Trump always diminishes the accomplishments of others hoping that it makes him look better. It doesn’t.
Time and time again, Trump is exposed for underachievement, lies, and ridicule; except from the MAGA cult who seem to swallow everything he tells them. Sometimes the contradictions in his statements are jarring and 180 degrees away from something he claimed a few days earlier. Makes one wonder whether he thinks we are all unable to remember from day to day. Here are some examples of Trump DoubleTalk:
Iran’s missile capability at the start of the war. “{we will} raze their missile industry to the ground”. Now with his Memorandum of Understanding, “I’m saying that if other countries have them {missiles}, it’s a little bit unfair for them {Iran} not to have some,” “If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it’s okay.”
Regime change in Iran at start of the war: “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny,” he told the Iranian people in a video. “This is the moment for action.” Do not let it pass. And “{The} Iranian regime, {is} a vicious group of very hard, terrible people”. With signing of the MOU, US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he “never cared about regime change” in Iran, adding that the US is dealing with “very rational people.” “I don’t believe the regime change, you know, I’ve watched regime changes for years, they never work,”
Inflation: After years of castigating Joe Biden for inflation that at the end of Biden’s term was less than the inflation Trump has caused with his tariffs and Iran War, now we hear, “I love the inflation”.
Obama’s Iran Deal: Calling it a “horrible,” “dangerous,” and “disastrous document”. And, “{it’s a} catastrophe” and called President Obama a “stupid son of a bitch”. Now with Trump’s weak MOU giving Iran almost everything it wants, experts are calling it a foreign policy blunder of historic proportions (here) and (here). I wrote an analysis of the two Iran deals as well (here).
Crypto: Prior to Trump’s second term and before he found out he could make money with crypto (at the expense of investors), this is what Trump had to say about crypto: In July 2019 in a twitter feed, while serving as president, Trump stated he is not a fan of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. He argued they were “not money,” highly volatile, and valued based on “thin air“. He also warned that unregulated crypto assets facilitated illegal behavior, including the drug trade. Now, of course, his tune has changed, “{he will} never let crypto down” and vowing to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world”.
Monies to Iran: Again, Trump spent years castigating Obama for his JCPOA deal with Iran claiming that it cost the U.S. “hundreds of billions”. The reality is that Iran got sanctions relief that enabled them to receive $55 Billion of their own frozen assets and $400 million in a settled dispute with the U.S. plus $1.3 billion in interest. Now as part of Trump’s MOU, Iran will receive up to $300 billion from a variety of U.S. and foreign investors for reconstruction along with immediate sanctions relief. Even the Republicans are alarmed, “The deal Donald Trump struck with Iran has triggered a backlash from within his Republican Party as prominent members raise concerns about sanctions relief and a proposed $300 billion reconstruction fund” (here).
We could supply many other examples of these dramatic about faces in Trump’s statements, but here’s another example of how he makes outrageous, ridiculous statements that later put him in a position of ridicule.
Remember all the fuss about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool? How it was horrible and that Biden and Trump had made a mess of it and botched any repairs? So, when Trump makes a very big deal of repairing the Reflecting Pool and painting it “American Flag Blue” and uses a no bid contract to reward a friend and donor to apply the blue coating (apparently without appropriate expertise and knowledge that the darker coating would be susceptible to algae and separation), we then get a huge algae bloom that sullies the waters and the coating begins to separate from the bottom. Obama and Biden both had troubles with the pond and algae growth, but they didn’t invest themselves in it as a priority, it was handled at lower levels in their administrations as would be appropriate. But Trump looks ridiculous by making it a personal priority. And then, to cover his incompetence, he arrests a bystander and claims he was a “vandal” who was merely dipping his hand in the pool to touch the separated blue coating.
In fact, the whole episode shows that Trump’s priorities are all in the wrong places. Where are his efforts on fixing the economy? Affordability? What about Health Care? Climate Change? Homelessness? Wealth Inequity?
Instead, we see him fixated on the Gilded Ball Room, The Triumphant Arch, The Reflecting Pool, his name on the Kennedy Center, acquiring Greenland, denigrating allies like Italy’s Meloni and Ukraine’s Zelensky, NATO, and Europe. All the while fawning over Putin, Xi and Jong Un.
Our man-child President deserves ridicule. It would be funny were it not so dangerous.
Seen through algae-laden green water, a tear in the recently applied sealant can be seen on the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.