As a once-avid sports fan, I’ve seen a lot of situations where a favored team got caught looking ahead to the next opponent and suffered an embarrassing loss. My team for over 60 years of frustration, the Detroit Lions, experienced a bad and unexpected loss in the NFL playoffs recently. Although there were other factors in play besides player overconfidence, it isn’t just the teams that sometimes take their invincibility for granted. More often than not, a fan base hungry for championships falls victim to the mistaken belief that their team can do no wrong.
During President Trump’s inaugural speech, as he outlined his vision of American greatness almost without limits, I couldn’t help thinking of the contrast with his first and rather gloomy inaugural speech in 2017. Surely the truth of where we’re going rests between these two extremes, doesn’t it? And if that be the case, then Trump is doing a lot of over-promising that may result in under-deliveries, sometimes dramatically so. Let’s take a look at just a few daunting items:
- Ukraine. Trump has promised a speedy negotiated end to the seemingly endless conflict between Russia and Ukraine. How this can be accomplished in the face of Putin’s intransigence and Ukraine’s brave and continuing resistance is anyone’s guess. Trump is making some positive moves in tightening the screws on Putin and cutting aid to Ukraine to pressure both to end the war, but on what terms it will end is very uncertain.
- Mass Deportations. This effort promises to be a logistical as well as a political nightmare. As numerous conservative talk radio hosts have noted, the American people who favor this approach had better brace themselves for an onslaught of bleeding-heart media coverage focusing on families allegedly being ripped apart, reliable, tax-paying workers getting forcibly removed, and so on. Blue state and big city resistance will add to the difficulty of executing this mission. The question is, where is the line to be drawn on deciding, ultimately, who must go and who gets to stay? This can become very complicated in a hurry, with legions of lawyers and courts getting involved in the fray. There’s been at least one lawsuit already regarding the executive order removing the “anchor-baby” citizenship status that benefits illegal aliens who give birth to a child in the U.S.
- Downsizing Government. While establishing a Department of Government Efficiency headed by genius businessman Elon Musk is a great development, Musk has no direct authority to slash government programs and spending. Given Speaker Mike Johnson’s apparent MO of talking tough and acting wimpy, there’s no telling how much (or little) of the government’s fat will be trimmed by Congress. Even what seems like a slam dunk - eliminating the Department of Education – will encounter resistance from states who fear the loss of federal funds that prop up their oftentimes failing education systems. Will Johnson be strong enough to carry the ball that Musk passes to him and score a touchdown in getting this and other recommendations implemented? I’m not betting the farm on it.
- Renewing the Tax Cuts. Arguably, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 provided the fuel that powered the engine of accelerated economic growth in the U.S. until the COVID-19 outbreak derailed this train. However, getting the act renewed in the face of $36 trillion in debt is not going to be easy, even with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Although I’m reasonably confident that the renewal will pass, Trump will have used a sizable chunk of political capital in getting this done that could hurt him and his party in the 2026 midterms. The Dems will use their well-worn playbook on demagoguing “tax cuts for the rich” and, for the umpteenth time, a sizable bloc of voters will still fall for it.
- Resolving the Middle East Crisis. Trump deserves credit for his plan to restart the Abraham Accords to include peace agreements between Israel and additional Arab nations that had not signed onto the original accords. However, the vicious Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, coupled with the ongoing war to destroy Hamas and the recent toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, has made the region even more dangerous and volatile than usual. Joe Biden’s hapless efforts and tepid support for Israel did nothing to improve the situation either.
There are others, such as a passing reference to sending a manned spacecraft to Mars in the foreseeable future, that seem to echo the ghosts of 60-plus years ago, when a much more optimistic nation listened as a new, youthful president boldly predicted we’d put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Back then, it actually happened, despite costing the lives of some astronauts in achieving the ultimate quest. Also noteworthy is that JFK is the last president to directly ask for some sacrifices from his fellow citizens (“ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”). Given our current situation – massive public debt, entitled culture, and political division - maybe Trump should be doing that too. Expressing supreme confidence in the people without asking for some realistic sacrifices is like asking a couch potato to step in and quarterback the winning team in the Super Bowl.
