© 2017 by reclaimtheamericandream.org. The article was written by Hedrick Smith, executive editor of reclaimtheamericandream.org.
Washington – Okay, let’s keep score. He’s thrown down the gauntlet. After taking the oath of office, President Trump used his Inaugural address to tar his presidential predecessors and most of Congress, whose members sat around him, as failures – “politicians who are all talk and no action.” So that’s Trump’s standard – action, not talk.
What his predecessors had bequeathed him, Trump groused, was American capitalism in retreat, a depleted American military, and a nation decimated by a “carnage” of violence and economic decline. But like a Sun King of old, our new Chief Executive proclaimed with unrestrained bravado that he himself, as champion of the people, would create a new American Utopia powered by the credo of “America First.”
“America will start winning again, winning like never before. We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams,” he vowed. “We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways, all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.”
At least 663 Trump Promises to Voters
It is a brash and boastful agenda. Yet ambitious as the Inaugural sounded, that magical vision is a small fraction of the Christmas boatload of promises that Trump showered upon campaign rallies from Miami to Cincinnati to Colorado Springs and beyond in 2016. At Think Progress, a progressive media website, a research team led by Ryan Koronowski tallied no fewer than 663 specific Trump campaign promises, like these:
- “And we will produce 25 million jobs over a period of 10 years. [Charlotte, North Carolina, 10/14/16]
- Annual economic growth “…we’re bringing it from 1 percent up to 4 percent. And I actually think… you can go to 5 percent or 6 percent.” [CNN, Third debate, 10/19/16]
- Wages – “Many, many workers in our country are making substantially less money today in real wages than they made 18 years ago. They’re working two jobs instead of one.… We’re going to stop it. We’re going to create great jobs and we’re going to get the wages up.” [Dimondale, Minnesota, 8/19/16]
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Editor’s note: This article originally published on Reclaim the American Dream’s blog. It was republished with permission.
Photo Credit: Official Whitehouse Facebook Page