When Trump's Promises Go Unkept

Click here for an article by Paul Waldman at The Plum Line, a Washington Post blog, entitled "How Trump’s biggest broken promise will make white supremacist terrorism even worse."

Is Trump's rhetoric inspiring murders? Waldman says:

There’s another vital question we need to ask: not whether Trump is inspiring murderers, but whether he is now, and will in the future, disappoint them in ways that could lead to more deadly violence.

Trump promised "a return to when people like them were on top. The Muslims would be banned, the minorities would be shown their place, a “big beautiful wall” would be built from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — and Mexico would pay for it."

The problem will arise, Waldman says, when Trump supporters realize he can't fulfill his promises:

As historian Rick Perlstein noted just after the 2016 election, Trump made practical promises he couldn’t possibly keep, but “the biggest, only made implicitly, was the same one fascist strongmen always offer: transcendent national renewal, built upon the cleansing of dangerous untermenschen from the body politic.” Once that promise inevitably fails to be fulfilled, the results could be catastrophic. “The more Trumpism fails, the more, and more violently, scapegoats will be blamed.”