Trump's broken pledges are stacking up to cartoonish heights
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
I’m outing myself as a comic-book nerd when I admit that President Trump often makes me think of a character from the Popeye strip — not Popeye, the spinach-eating sailor and strongman, nor his nemesis Bluto, but J. Wellington Wimpy, whose tagline has endured across decades of pop culture: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
What connects Trump and Wimpy is not just their shared love of hamburgers; it’s that they are both con-men, looking to take advantage of others’ gullibility or trust for their own benefit.
When Tuesdays came around, Wimpy was nowhere to be found to make good on his deal. Now that voters have given Trump power, he has abandoned many of the promises he made.
Consider how often Trump campaigned as if he had a foolproof plan to reduce grocery prices on day one, but in fact, grocery prices are up 3 percent year-over-year and reached record highs in 2025. In an example of classic Trump gaslighting, he’s telling people the bald-faced lie that prices are “WAY DOWN.”
And think of how many times he promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid, then bullied Republican members of Congress into passing a budget that takes $1 trillion from Medicaid, threatening to deny millions of Americans access to health care and force rural hospitals to close. Meanwhile, cuts to nutrition programs threaten rural grocery stores.
Trump claimed that his trade wars and tariff policies will be good for American workers, but the actual “deals” he is striking and policies he is imposing are undermining key industries like auto manufacturing and green energy jobs, let alone the anticipated impact on families’ ability to make ends meet.
He promised to balance the budget, but then pressured the Republican Congress to pass a budget that adds trillions to our national debt with a tax plan that benefits billionaires at the expense of working people.
One of Trump’s campaign themes has been his promise to “drain the swamp” and take on corruption in the nation’s capital. Instead, he has elevated corruption to a previously unimaginable level, an epic level.
He, his family and his companies are making billions of dollars with shady crypto schemes, deals with foreign governments, and a brazen "money talks" approach to everything from getting presidential pardons to making antitrust and other lawsuits disappear.
Trump promised to end the “weaponization” of the government. He has, instead, turned the Justice Department, FBI and even independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission into weapons of revenge against his personal enemies and political opponents.
He has overseen the purge of FBI agents, prosecutors and other federal employees who had any role in investigating his actions and prosecuting the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
He has abused his power by bullying law firms, media companies and universities into doing his bidding — and becoming extensions of his powerful ambitions.
Trump’s con extends to his promise to be a champion for the rule of law, a promise he has repeatedly broken by violating the law and the Constitution.
He has defied judges’ rulings. He has overseen the abduction and trafficking of people into foreign concentration camps without the opportunity to prove their innocence.
He granted pardons and clemency to thousands of people who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, even those who brutally assaulted and injured Capitol Police officers.
Trump nominated, and Republican senators irresponsibly confirmed, his former personal lawyer and prime enforcer Emil Bove to a lifetime federal judgeship, despite growing whistleblower evidence that Bove schemed to defy the courts and misled senators during his confirmation hearing.
Trump said he would focus his deportation efforts on dangerous criminals and gang members. But to reach his desire for bigger numbers to brag about, his administration has unleashed terror on immigrant communities with violent arrests and brutal sweeps of hard-working and law-abiding parents and grandparents.
Trump said he wants to unify the country, but he has stoked racial division, waged war on civil and voting rights and given high-ranking positions to people who have overtly promoted racism and Christian nationalists whose agendas are grounded in exclusion.
It’s almost laughable that Trump named his social media platform “Truth” when one of his defining characteristics is his relentless lying about things both petty and important.
Trump himself will never again face voters — we hope.
Sadly, Republicans in Congress and Trump's collaborators on the Supreme Court are sacrificing our constitutional checks and balances, giving the president virtually free rein to indulge his corrupt schemes and dictatorial impulses. The American people will be paying the price long after he is gone.
Trump’s declining approval rating suggests that many Americans, including many who voted for Trump, are recognizing that his promises to take care of our families, our communities, our Constitution and our country, are just as trustworthy as Wimpy’s pledge.
So no, Trump will not be paying us next Tuesday. Or the Tuesday after. But Americans will have the final say come the first Tuesday in November.
In 2026 and 2028 our elections — always held on a Tuesday — will give us a chance to stop the destruction and begin the long process of repairing and renewing our country.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.