Actions Talk

I keep hearing that we should judge Donald Trump by his actions, not his words. For once, I completely agree. In fact, I think that's exactly what every voter should have done before voting for him. What frustrates me is how many people act surprised by what they are seeing today. The chaos. The division. The constant drama. The attacks on institutions. The endless lawsuits. The legal troubles. The loyalty tests. The endless excuses. By many, those were completely ignored.

Why are people surprised?

 Donald Trump didn't arrive in 2016 as a mystery. He came with decades of public behavior. Americans watched him operate for years. We saw how he treated critics. We saw how he treated women. We saw the accusations of sexual abuse. We saw how he treated minorities. We saw how he handled business disputes. We saw how he responded when things didn't go his way. The warning labels were not hidden. They sat out in the open. The greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. That's not politics. That's common sense. A leopard doesn't change its spots because it becomes president. One of the biggest mistakes Americans made was believing the office would change the man. Instead, the man changed the office.

I hear people say that Trump united his supporters. Maybe he did. But that isn't the job. A president's job is to represent all Americans, including the people who didn't vote for him, and he has failed badly when it comes to that. I lived through the Obama years and the Trump years. I sat in bars. I talked to neighbors. I listened to ordinary people. America wasn't perfectly united under Obama. No country ever is. But I don't remember people looking at their fellow citizens with the same level of suspicion and hostility. I don't remember political disagreement turning into personal hatred at the level we see today. I don’t remember the insults and name-calling because, for the most part, they didn’t exist.

America was divided before Trump. I know that.

But a president doesn't get a free pass because division already existed. A doctor doesn't create a disease, but he can certainly make it worse, and in my opinion, we have become much worse. What I saw was a president who often seemed to judge people by whether they supported him. Critics became enemies. Disagreement became disloyalty. Opposition became something to crush rather than debate. That isn't leadership. That's tribalism. Supporters tell me Trump was effective. My response is simple. Effective at what? Do we have better healthcare? Are our public schools better? Are working families more secure? Is housing more affordable? Are the poorest among us doing better? Is government more trusted? Is the country more united? Are we leaving our children a stronger democracy than the one we inherited? The answer to all those questions, in my opinion, is no, and those are not gotcha questions. Those are the questions that matter.

I hear people point to the tax cuts. Fine. Tax cuts happened. But so did exploding deficits and rising debt. I hear people talk about the return of the “Golden Age of the 50s”. Guess what? In the 50s, people, especially rich people, paid taxes. So, by the direction we are going, we will never return to any “Golden Age”. I hear people talk about the Supreme Court. Fine. The justices were confirmed. But what has been the result? Has our constitutional republic become stronger or weaker? I believe weaker. Has our belief in the Constitution become stronger or weaker? Again, I believe weaker. Have our rights become more secure or less secure? Again, I believe it is less secure. Have Americans become more confident in their institutions or less confident? I believe that Americans on both sides of the aisle have become less confident.

I hear people praise deregulation.

Yes, but many haven’t. But who benefited? Did ordinary Americans benefit, or did powerful interests benefit the most? Did deregulation make our water cleaner? Did deregulation make our air cleaner? Did deregulation make our food safer? Deregulation has done none of those things.

Supporters praise immigration enforcement.

Again, fine. Every country has a right to enforce its laws. But a constitutional republic is defined by how it treats rights when those rights are inconvenient. Due process doesn't only apply to people we like. Rights don't only matter when they help our side; they aren't rights at all; that is privilege. Immigration enforcement has weakened our Constitution.

The same common-sense test applies everywhere.

If a politician says he supports transparency, show me transparency. If a politician says he supports fiscal responsibility, show me fiscal responsibility. If a politician says he supports victims, show me justice for victims. If a politician says he supports the Constitution, show me constitutional principles being protected when they become politically inconvenient. Don't tell me. Show me, and most of the time we are shown nothing.  That's always been my problem with modern politics. We've become obsessed with words and forgotten about consequences. Words are easy. Actions are difficult. Anybody can make promises. Anybody can make excuses. Anybody can issue statements. Anybody can hire public relations people. Reality doesn't care about any of that. Reality is what happened. That's why I keep coming back to the same point. What happened is the truth. The rest is explanation. The rest is spin. The rest is marketing. What happened is the truth.

Before 2016, many Republicans themselves warned us about Donald Trump. They questioned his character, his judgment, his temperament, and his honesty. Later, many of those same people fell into line. Maybe it was political survival. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was ambition. Maybe it was simply the desire to win. I don't know. What I do know is that principles are easy when they cost nothing. The real test comes when those principles threaten your career. Too many have failed that test, and the ones that did pass, like Liz Cheney, were thrown out of the Republican Party.

The lesson of the Trump era may not even be about Trump.

It may be about us. We inspect a used car before we buy it. We check references before we hire someone. We look at reviews before we spend our money. Yet millions of people ignored decades of observable behavior, and then many acted shocked when that behavior continued. The warning labels were there. The pattern was there. The evidence was there. The behavior was there. People simply chose to believe it wouldn't matter. I could be wrong, but I think common sense has been under attack for a long time. In fact, I have written that common sense is under attack. Common sense says actions talk. Common sense says patterns matter. Common sense says character matters. Common sense says people usually show you who they are if you pay attention long enough. And common sense says that if words and actions keep colliding, believe the actions.

Because actions talk.

Everything else is just talking.