What Counts Are Actions

Published online July 6, 2017

In her letter in the May 17 issue, Beth Cole ’81 states that President Trump “has made it clear that his goal is to put all American workers back to work, not just white workers.”  To cite any politician’s mere words as evidence of truth is naïve. To cite the words of a man who has provably (by independent fact-checkers) uttered 488 false statements and lies since his inauguration beggars belief.

Judge a man, rather, by his actions. Trump’s tax plan favors the top 1 percent and screws the workingman. His plan to repeal Obamacare will eliminate health insurance for tens of millions of the very workers who voted for him. His trade policies will increase unemployment among those same workers. His loosening of EPA pollution regulations will expose those same workers to crippling diseases.

His promise to increase jobs in the coal industry is cruelly hollow, as almost every economist will tell you. It is automation that is reducing employment in that industry, and that the effects are irreversible. And the unemployment rate is so low, there is precious little room for growth anyway.

This is a man who has arguably not read a book in his entire adult life. What he knows about increasing employment can fit in the ear of a flea. The only new employment position here is the con job Trump is pulling on the American worker.