Trump broke this key campaign promise—and we’re all paying for it

A key tenet of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party meme is the notion that people don’t pay attention to what is promised to them.

President Donald Trump promised to deport all immigrants and to end birthright citizenship because he considered all non-white people to be “illegal,” but many Latinos thought that “he’s only going to deport the criminals.” 

He also promised to enact job-killing, inflation-spiking tariffs, and people (including farmers, who are most affected) thought that he was just posturing for negotiations.

Trump promised “pain” on the economy, and billionaires thought “as long as I get my tax cut, all is good!” 

He promised to fire the federal workforce, and conservative federal employees thought, “good, there is too much waste, but my federal job is essential!” 

He promised to cut trillions from the federal budget, but of course moocher red states thought, “spending on us is not wasteful, all the other spending is!”

And Trump promised to raze Gaza and give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche, but some pro-Palestine folks thought that he couldn’t be any worse than “Genocide Joe” and “Killer Kamala.”

But in the end, none of that really won Trump the election. Rather, it was just one simple promise that got voters on board.

“Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” Trump promised while visiting Bozeman, Montana, in August 2024. 

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1,” Trump said at a grocery store a week later. 

It’s a refrain that he constantly revisited on the campaign trail, like in September 2024 when he said, “Groceries, cars—everything. We’re going to get the prices down.”

“I have more complaints on ‘grocery.’ The word ‘grocery.’ You know, it’s a sorta simple word, but it sorta means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, uh, I have more complaints about that. Bacon and things going up. Double. Triple. Quadruple,” he said.

But by every possible measure—just like in virtually every free election around the world—inflation was ultimately the defining factor in the 2024 election. 

Just look at the 2024 exit polls, which showed that Trump won 76-23% among those suffering “severe hardship” due to inflation and 52-46% among those suffering “moderate hardship.” Among those unaffected by inflation, Kamala Harris won 78-21%. 

That’s why Trump shockingly won voters who make less than $50,000, while Harris won those who make more than that—a complete reversal from historical norms, where Republicans have been the party of the wealthy. 

Trump won because of the price of groceries, plain and simple. And what has he done since taking office? He shit on our alliances, made googly eyes with dictators, renamed the Gulf of Mexico, threatened to take over Greenland, demonized immigrants, indiscriminately fired tens of thousands of federal workers, eliminated foreign aid, gone after trans people, and, all that time, completely ignored anything having to do with lowering the cost of living. 

In fact, both mass deportations—which eliminate a source of cheap farm labor—and tariffs are highly inflationary. And Trump’s utter disinterest in actually solving problems has led to the bird flu decimating egg-laying hens, dramatically raising the price of eggs. 

In January, the consumer price index experienced an unexpected hike in prices after Biden had essentially tamed inflation, and that was before Trump’s tariffs and deportations even began to take effect. 

And people are noticing. Consumer confidence plunged to an eight-month low, with its largest one-month drop in 3.5 years. When confidence drops, so does spending, which further strains the economy. Similarly, businesses are pulling back investments, which will further exacerbate economic decline. 

Likely taking all that into consideration and more, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s economic projections have gone from from 2-3% annualized economic growth, to a nearly 3% drop. That’s recession territory, and it puts a depression in the realm of possibilities. 

It’s bleak, particularly since we have a president who doesn’t seem inclined to actually try to prevent it. He’s convinced that his tariffs will make America great, and he’s happy to economically devastate his country to prove the experts wrong. 

The stock market has finally realized that Trump wasn’t bluffing about his insane tariff plans, and as I write this, the Dow is down 1,300 points over the last two days. 

As for the voters, Trump doesn’t care. He either can’t run for reelection in 2028, or he thinks he can finagle his cherished dictatorship. Either way, he doesn’t have to concern himself with public opinion. 

But his party? Midterms are next year, and watching the GOP accede to not just this disastrous economic and foreign policy direction but also the slashing of the very Medicaid program that is keeping rural America afloat is sheer insanity. Republicans are so beholden to the cult that they are heading toward the cliff like lemmings—unable or unwilling to deviate from the path, even for self-preservation. 

For all the noise and bluster, voters heard one thing from Trump during election season: that he was going to lower prices on Day 1. But now Trump isn’t even pretending to fulfill that campaign promise, and he’s actively making the economy worse. 

“They want 1939 Germany. They’ll get 1789 France,” indeed.

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