Promises, Promises....

 

There is a popular saying in business: “Under Promise, Over Deliver.”  As a bona fide pessimist, I tend to take this approach to most things in life, not just business relationships.  Experience has taught me that Murphy’s Law is real; as real as gravity, death and taxes.  If things can go wrong, they will go wrong.

What is often overlooked, even by pessimists like me, are the corollaries associated with Murphy’s Law. For example, when things go wrong, and they will; they usually go wrong at the worst possible moment. If there is a possibility that multiple things might go wrong, one can expect the one that will cause the most damage will be the one that goes wrong. If one prepares for multiple things to go wrong, there will always be something unexpected that goes wrong.  And when you come up with a way to handle it, the solution ends up creating some other problem. 

Which brings us to our 47^th President, Donald J. Trump.  I have already confessed that I voted for him, but with the disclaimer that the Democrats left me no choice other than to not vote at all.  With the exception of securing our southern border, most everything Trump has done has gone wrong.  And in every case, he said it would be “great” and remains in denial that it isn’t.  Trump not only OVER promises and UNDER delivers, he manages to make things worse than they would have been otherwise. 

Reducing government waste is a great idea.  Over promising how much and how soon and then turning Elon Musk and his Whiz Kids loose with an axe when a scalpel would have been more appropriate, is a classic move from the Trump playbook.

Addressing unfair trade practices needed to happen, especially with respect to China.  And we needed better deals with a number of other trading partners.  But across the board tariffs and threats of even more punitive tariff actions was a stupid move.  Even more so, given that it might well be ruled unconstitutional (and was in fact.)

Directing ICE to round up any and all undocumented persons was a fool’s errand. Did we need to focus on the criminals and welfare scammers?  Of course.  But we’ve allowed generations of people enter this country illegally or enter legally and subsequently fail to maintain legal immigration status.  They’ve worked, obeyed the law (other than immigration), raised families and on balance been a net positive for America.  And, now all at once, we’re going to treat them like criminals.  Technically they may be.  Morally, ethically and for that matter, pragmatically they are not.

And then there is Iran.  Dealing with Iran was long overdue.  But this has been a classic “Over Promise-Under Deliver” adventure.  It was never going to be easy.  There are reasons why the world has put up with Iran and their proxies.  Of course, it’s always about oil and here we are again. Then there is Iran’s radicalized version of Islam.  If only 1% of the world’s 2 Billion Muslims hold the most radical beliefs, that’s 20,000,000 people.  Some of those 20,000,000 will gladly give their life for jihad and a fair number of those jihadists are in the United States and Western Europe.  And there has always been the risk that China and or Russia will align themselves with Iran should it come to all-out war.  The truth of the matter is that most Americans and Europeans don’t want to fight that war.  They don’t think it’s worth it, may not be winnable and in the long run will only create more radicalized Muslims.

Too often our leaders Over-Promise and Under-Deliver.  To make it worse they don’t count the cost of things going wrong, and things always go wrong.  So best not to tell the people anything other than how necessary it is and how great it’s going to be.  Don’t mention what might go wrong or what it might cost.  Trump is not the first and he won’t be the last, but for now he is the poster boy for Over Promise-Under Deliver

Thus, history is littered with “Over Promises”.  Wars, Government Programs, Miracle Drugs, The Dallas Cowboys and The Golden Years….are but only a few.