Alright, so I’ve been seeing these videos floating around where people are legitimately surprised by things Donald Trump has done—things he actually promised to do during his campaigns. The common thread in all of these reactions is something like, “Well, he said he’d do it, but I didn’t think he’d actually go through with it!”
And here’s the thing: if someone votes for a politician who doesn’t follow through on their promises, isn’t that kinda bad? Like, wouldn’t you want the person you voted for to keep their word? So why is this a thing now? Is this just people messing around and trolling, or did they genuinely think Trump wasn’t going to do what he said he’d do?
I mean, maybe it’s because of how unpredictable Trump was during his presidency. He had a habit of saying things one way but then doing the opposite, which could’ve made some people doubt whether he’d actually follow through on his big promises. But now that he is following through on some of those things, it seems like people are genuinely caught off guard.
So here’s what I’m wondering: is this something to celebrate? Like, is it a good thing that people didn’t think Trump would keep his word? Or is it just another example of how the political landscape has changed in ways no one expected?
I think you’ve already answered your own question. Trump’s first presidency was very different from his second. And the key difference is his advisors. No one knew how to deal with Trump in his first presidency, and the overarching pattern above the chaos was his close advisors constantly working against him to protect the system.
In the break between his terms, he found people who would follow any of his directives, no matter how stupid or damaging. Or I should say, they found him. Trump is now being manipulated himself by a group of “loyalists” who stand to gain from the exact chaos Trump was thwarted from doing the first time around. These people know enough about how the systems work to be actually dangerous. And now that his advisors are philosophically aligned with him, he’s actually doing what he says he’s going to do. I would argue the 4 years of a Trump reprieve may have been the worst of all possibilities, because it gave Trump and his new in-group time to find each other and prepare.
But most people weren’t paying attention. Many saw Trump in 2024 just like they saw him in 2016; the counterweight, spoiler, outsider set to upset Washington and get real changes happening. They thought Democrats weren’t helping them enough, and so wanted to upset the apple cart and get someone different in the high seat. They weren’t paying close enough attention to see that this time was actually radically different to all elections before, and I saw many, many people dismissing the warnings as “oh everyone claims their opponents are fascists, or are going to destroy the country.”
So it’s a combination of people not paying attention, as usual, and Trump actually changing how he’s doing things this time in the worst way possible.
Yep.
One caveat to this, though, is that Trump’s advisors aren’t philosophicaly aligned to Trump, they just have a deal in order to get things done.
Trump doesn’t really seem to care what gets done as long as he can take all the credit and none of the blame. Also, Trump will let his staff do whatever they want as long as they don’t need a personal signoff from Trump. One of the problems with the war hawks trying to get Trump to go to war with Iran in the later half of Trump’s first term is that the military wouldn’t fire without a direct order and Trump refused to give it.
As long as their work can be done without Trump, he is for it as long as they stay loyal to him.