When a Promise is a Lie

There was a time when I would at least try to listen to an opposing viewpoint.  It has been my experience that a willingness to listen is much more preferable to being antagonistic.  Although I cannot say my mind was ever changed by being shouted at or called a "deplorable", in many instances it can be said my opposition was affirmed by whatever arguments were brought forth.

This election season has become a joke.  I cannot bring myself to listen to these many ridiculous “promises” and the pretend-indignation expressed by the (at last count) twenty-two Democrat candidates who seem more certain the presidency is their destiny than they are aware they have jobs they are currently neglecting.  They also seem pretty sure of what they say and all they are promising – until thinking people vet these “promises” against a president’s constitutional and thus, legal capacity to actually carry them out.

It is a common thing for presidential candidates to promise the moon, but it has been rare (maybe even non-existent) for these promises to be measured by voters against the constitutional scope of presidential power and authority.

What is most disturbing in this field of Democrat candidates is the large number of those who currently hold an elected office  and yet display a profound ignorance of how the federal system of checks and balances really works.

Yet one cannot help but to wonder if it is ignorance on their part (most are educated lawyers) – or deliberate attempts to manipulate moods based on the presupposed ignorance of those who support them.  And by “ignorant”, I mean “uninformed” and, consequently, gullible.

“I will cut taxes”.  “I will raise taxes”.  “I will repeal this”.  “I will repeal that”.  And the list goes on and on.  By their expressions – and clear disdain for all things Trump – they do not seem to grasp (or they hope no one notices) that the president can only act within existing law.  I’ll grant that many presidents have danced on the edge of existing law with executive orders but, more often than not, what we get from the Congress whenever a president acts independently is a lot of “wailing and gnashing of teeth”.  There is no substantial legal blow-back, however, because the president is often determined to have acted within existing legal boundaries.

Worse even than this deliberate attempt to manipulate ignorant voters are the voters themselves who have come to not only expect this behavior from educated adults; we have all but embraced it.  We elect – and reelect – these persons over and again, affirming to them that this is apparently what the voters want and expect.  Though nothing changes, we believe their promises that things will certainly change if they are elected/reelected.

The Democrats are doing exactly this by accusing the current president of all sorts of mischief.  Yet the promises this current field are throwing out there for our consideration are staggering, exhausting to keep up with, and remarkably expensive.  There is also one element of each of these promises these contenders fail to mention: to accomplish any of these will require the cooperation of the Congress.  The president alone cannot deliver on any of these, and it is highly unlikely such outrageous promises will come to pass.

These candidates are either blind and ignorant themselves, or they are hoping voters are.  There is no way these candidates can possibly believe such astounding promises can ever come to fruition under our current system of government, a constitutional republic (not a democracy) shaped and bound by the US Constitution – not subject to a fickle and simple majority of demands or desires.

If these candidates know this – and giving them all the benefit of the doubt that they cannot help but to know this – that leaves us with this simple premise: those who are gullible enough to fall for all these “promises” are being sold a bill of goods.  They are being lied to.  We are being lied to.  It is one thing to cast a vision; it is another thing altogether to make impossible promises.

We are better than this, and we have every right not to be treated as mindless minions of an overbearing government.  The White House – indeed the nation – needs a chief executive officer and commander-in-chief.  The Pied Piper is a fable.  It is best to be left as such.