Routine dishonesty has been a defining characteristic of President Donald Trump’s campaign and tenure in the White House—and it should not be sugar-coated. At a staggering 8,158 false statements made over his first two years in office, Trump’s habit of lying can begin to seem mundane or even comical. But, for millions of American families living paycheck to paycheck, Trump’s unfulfilled economic promises are anything but trivial. Throughout his campaign, Trump pledged to quickly reverse sweeping economic trends that have left wages stagnant and large swaths of the country behind for decades, exploiting the understandable desire for systemic change in order to get elected. Once in office, however, he methodically executed an agenda to make those same problems worse.
Trump’s inability or unwillingness to assess the economy accurately and honestly has harmed the very people whose lives he promised to improve. A self-described advocate for “the forgotten men and women,” Trump’s economic priorities have instead heaped benefits on corporations and the wealthiest Americans, who were already reaping the vast majority of the economy’s rewards.
This was not a case of a presidential candidate with lofty aspirations meeting the reality of gridlock in Washington, particularly considering the advantage of having a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump’s core economic promises, which were the backbone of what he and others called “populism” or “economic nationalism” were—almost without fail—flat lies from the beginning.