As Donald Trump closes out his first week as the 45th president of the United States, he is doing something that is totally shocking. He is doing something revolutionary. He is doing something unheard of in Washington.
What is President Trump doing?
He is keeping his promises.
The problem with American politics is that American politicians keep living down to the low expectations the American voters have for them. American politicians, even those running for president, believe they have to say certain things to get elected and then once elected, they promptly forget what they promised.
The Republicans under former House Speaker John Boehner were the poster children for low expectations and untruthful statements. Speaker Boehner promised he would stand up against Barack Obama and the Democrats. He promised there would be fiscal conservatism coming from the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. He promised the GOP would repeal Obamacare.
For him and many other establishment Republicans, those comments were punchlines to a joke. Perhaps the biggest joke was on the American people. Many real Americans believed Speaker Boehner.
When Eric Cantor was the House Majority Leader, every time there was any controversy among the Republicans, he promptly had the House vote on an Obamacare repeal bill. It became a joke as the GOP voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare. But the attempts were not serious as they were stand-alone bills that were promptly killed as soon as they went to the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In his first days, President Trump issued executive orders that could gut Obamacare. He has said he wants Obamacare repealed and has the Republican Congress working on it. He issued executive orders on immigration and directed the federal government to start building the wall that had previously been authorized by Congress. He is restricting immigration from terrorist hotspots and stopping abuses of the refugee system. He issued an executive order defunding international groups that support abortion.
He also issued orders rescinding America’s participation in the massively flawed Trans Pacific Partnership and announced we would renegotiate the NAFTA so-called “free trade” agreement.
President Trump froze federal hiring and reinstated the Keystone pipeline project as well as issuing another executive order to freeze and then reduce federal regulations.
What do all of these issues have in common?
They were all issues then-candidate Donald Trump promised he would do when he entered the White House.
Now he is doing them.
Americans have long had a dim view of our politicians, and that low opinion has been well deserved. Calling politicians habitual liars is certainly an insult to the truth-impaired, but it is a very accurate description of America’s political class.
Few people of principle run for office. Many of them simply poll to see what their positions should be. The Clintons are a classic example. In 1990’s, they had their pollsters poll to see where the best place for the first family to vacation would be.
America is seeing a political revolution take place. President Trump is a politician who is doing something radical. He is keeping his promises. Those promises are popular with the public and if the squishy Republicans do not screw it up, it offers the GOP the chance to lead for a generation.
President Trump is setting a new standard for political leaders and if he does nothing more than keep his promises, he will be regarded in history as a great president.
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