Trump’s biggest lie

by David Cay Johnston | Apr 8, 2019 | Comment & Analysis, Government

Trump likes to claim he’s keeping his campaign promises, but most of them have been reversed. David Cay Johnston, DCReport

DONALD TRUMP’S latest flip-flops on healthcare and the Mexican border continue a pattern of promises, and reversals, that gets far too little attention. His flip-flops show that Trump ignores the interests of the party he latched onto in favor of whatever crazy idea pops into his head.

Although at his rallies Trump delights his uninformed supporters with claims that he’s followed through on his campaign promises—The Wall—he is actually delivering very little.

In all of these Trump has demonstrated that he knows nothing of policy or partisan agendas, only what serves himself. He does not know the pulse of America, only of the true believers of his cult of personality.

For Republican officeholders, down Trump’s path lies political death. We saw a sign of coming disaster for the GOP last fall when Democrats running for the House garnered 4.3 million more votes than Republicans—a greater popular vote margin than Hillary Clinton’s over Trump in 2016, though he won the Electoral College.

“Only an idiot, or a narcissist, would fail to realize the widespread fear

of losing health insurance and related fear of being uninsurable

because of a pre-existing condition”

Trump inflicted heavy damage last week on Republican politicians when the Justice Department stopped defending the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. Now Justice seeks to kill Obamacare in the courts.

Only an idiot, or a narcissist, would fail to realize the widespread fear of losing health insurance and related fear of being uninsurable because of a pre-existing condition, something virtually universal among those from middle age to 65, when Medicare kicks in. Pregnancy, by the way, is a pre-existing condition.

A conspiratorial cynic might think that the Democrats secretly planted the idea in Trump’s jumbled mind that repealing Obamacare is the path to a second term.

The other thoughtless flip-flop came when Trump declared he may shut down the Mexican border not just to asylum seekers, but to all commerce. If that happens, say adios to many fruits in winter, not to mention many of the 1.2 million American jobs that depend on trade with Mexico and, in turn, many jobs that depend on the incomes of those million-plus workers.

In 2020, every House Republican is up for election. So are 22 of 53 Republican senators. In addition, nine Republican governors face voters in 2019 or 2020, seven of them vulnerable to losing.

If Trump continues flailing about, in November 2020 we’ll find out just how big of a mistake Republican politicians made by not standing up to him.

——————–

David Cay Johnston

DCReport’s founder and editor is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, author of seven books including ‘The Making of Donald Trump’ and ‘It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America’. His reporting persuaded two presidents to change their tax policies, stopped tax dodges that Congress valued at more than $250 billion in the first decade alone, and promoted the passage of many federal and state laws and regulations. The Washington Monthly calls David “one of America’s most important journalists.”

David was a guest of the Sydney Democracy Network in Australia in 2017.

You can follow David on Twitter @DavidCayJ.

 

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DCReport’s founder and editor is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, author of seven books including ‘The Making of Donald Trump’ and ‘It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America’. His reporting persuaded two presidents to change their tax policies, stopped tax dodges that Congress valued at more than $250 billion in the first decade alone, and promoted the passage of many federal and state laws and regulations. The Washington Monthly calls David “one of America’s most important journalists.”

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