In life, it’s hard to know whom to trust. When you’re betrayed, it often feels like a knife to the heart. The reality is, try as we might, and as much as we think we know someone, sometimes we just don’t, which is how we get divorces or broken friendships and estranged families.
As that’s the case with people we know, how much should we
trust politicians?
Given that most of them are lawyers, we already know that
many are good at twisting the truth, so we should probably be skeptical of
anything they say. But the reality is, we don’t get the kinds of opportunities
to get to know politicians the way we do spouses, friends, etc. We therefore
largely must go by what we read about them and, of course, what they say.
For most of America’s history, trusting politicians was
relatively unimportant. What I mean is that in the universe of things that
affected our lives, other than on major things like war or taxes, government
was, by design, pretty far down on the list of catalysts for most of our
history. As such, people would pay attention to politics at election time, then
not really worry about it much until the next cycle. Government was, after all,
pretty small and, for most people, a distant concern.
Today, we’re at something of a polar opposite to that
laissez-faire, small government America. As they control so much of our lives,
it matters whether politicians are trustworthy and whether they betray their
voters.
Probably the single biggest betrayal by an American
politician—or at least president—was George Bush in 1990. During the campaign
of 1988, he made a pledge at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans
of “Read my lips: No new taxes.” That line resonated more than any
single element of that campaign, and as a result, Bush won the popular vote by
8 points and took the electoral college 426 to Michael Dukakis’s 111, the last
time any president received more than 380 votes.
Now, conservatives are rightfully worried that Donald Trump
may be getting ready to have his “Read my lips: No new taxes!” moment, but it
has nothing to do with taxes. I’m of course talking about statements such as
this: “Immediately upon taking the oath of office, I will launch the
largest deportation program in American history.” (He didn’t) And
this: “I consider it an invasion of our country… We’ll get National Guard,
and we’ll go as far as I’m allowed to go, according to the laws of our
country.” (He hasn’t) And this: When Kristen Welker asked Trump in an NBC News
interview whether his plan was to deport everyone without legal status, he
responded. “I think you have to do it.” (Nope)
With the relatively tiny number of deportations thus far,
pullback in Minnesota, and the administration’s softening its deportation stance on selected industries,
supporters are starting to wonder if Trump is giving the insurrectionists on
the left a “heckler’s veto” while capitulating to the Chamber of Commerce wing
(AKA grifting RINOs) of the Republican party.
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While Trump may not be on the ballot in November and in
2028, the reality is, if he does not follow through on his promises, the GOP
will likely lose Congress in November, and whoever the GOP nominee is, he will
have a very steep climb in 2028.
In July 2025, support for deporting
every illegal alien was at about 60% nationally. Today, according
to the left-leaning Pew organization, the number is about half that. While the Pew numbers no
doubt undercount the position’s support, the reality is, it’s likely
significantly below what it was six months ago.
And it’s Trump’s fault. Here’s how:
1. Democrats were always going to
politicize deportations, and other than Stephen Miller, Trump has not fielded a
strong team to communicate exactly why the deportations are necessary.
2. The media was always going to give any
conflict the Ken Burns / George Floyd treatment, and anything involving
children was going to get the “Kids in Cages” framing. Again, Trump has done
far too little to communicate the reality of what they are doing, and that
includes highlighting the costs of “non-criminal” illegals to the nation.
3. Finally, and most importantly, the left
is well-trained, well-funded, disciplined, and motivated to basically
begin a civil war over immigration because leftists understand that
Democrat power is fundamentally tied to illegal immigration. They know that the
violence they instigate will be portrayed as Trump’s.
And here is where Trump has dropped the ball most clearly.
He promised to utilize the National Guard or even invoke the Insurrection Act to ensure that he can
carry out his deportations in an orderly fashion. Not only has he not done so,
but he has also allowed sanctuary cities and states to stand by while ICE
agents are being assaulted trying to do their jobs. He’s let the leftists use
violence and intimidation to derail the lawful policies most Americans voted
for.
Americans have been shown over the last year that Democrat
power is based almost exclusively on cheating in every way possible, from fraud
in the election infrastructure to funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into
their campaign coffers via NGOs to encouraging non-citizens to vote. Americans
recognize that illegal immigration is the primary vehicle through which
Democrats maintain their power, and they use that power to harm the interests
of citizens at every opportunity.
Getting back to trust, Americans put theirs in Donald Trump
to do the one thing that he talked about more than any other issue over the
last four years: Deport illegal aliens, all of them.
No president in a generation has painted a more specific
agenda than he has, and if he does not fulfill his promises, it will splinter
the Republican party. There’s always been a fissure between the country club
Republicans and the grass roots, and while the former would be fine if Trump
goes back on his promise, the latter will not. They will either withhold their
votes or go with third-party candidates whom they feel they can trust more than
the treacherous Republicans.
Either way, such a betrayal would bring about the end of the
GOP as a viable counterweight to the treacherous Democrats, to the degree that
the GOP of the last 20 years had any counterweight value. With the Democrats in
charge of America, Trump and his allies, both in the administration and out,
would once again find targets on their backs a la the persecution of the
J6ers, General Flynn, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Tina Peters, et. al.
And it wouldn’t stop there. From individual ICE agents to
local MAGA adherents to Trump’s donors, everyone associated with the movement
would be crushed, using every element at their disposal from the IRS to the FBI
to a sure to be resurrected Disinformation Governance Board.
As much as Trump probably dislikes the way the media portray
him, he will like it a great deal less when they’ve imprisoned him and patriots
blame him for the collapse of the Republic. Both are very real possibilities if
he doesn’t keep his promises…
Follow me on X at @ImperfectUSA
