America's 2016 presidential campaign has gotten off to a highly promising start-and that's the problem.
Presidential candidates have been overpromising, left and right. They have been overpromising in ways so excessive that they'd be a threat to break all known records-except for the minor detail that no one ever bothered to keep accurate records for practices that fall into the category of business-as-usual.
To be perfectly fair, it would be unfair to say Republicans have been overpromising far more excessively than Democrats; because, after all, their double-digit field of candidates gave them an overwhelming numerical advantage over the puny Democratic field that for months was three and now is just two.
And Republicans had one more huge advantage: their pack included Donald Trump, a first-time politico who has single-handedly threatened to retire the cup for campaign promissory gushing. (Except, once again, no one ever endowed a cup to commemorate such normalcy).
But The Washington Post did the next best thing: It recently used its considerable store of dead trees to spread the news that it had compiled a list of Trump's top 76 campaign promises. At the very top, of course, was Trump's promise to: (1) build a "huge wall" of concrete and steel across the entire southern border of the United States-"the greatest wall that you've ever seen"-to finally stop illegals from entering the USA; and (2) to make Mexico pay for constructing the wall.
Trump also promised to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering the United States until we can find a way to assure that we are not letting any radical Islamic terrorists into our country. While Trump's suggestion of imposing a religious test-which the Constitution states shall never happen-came under attack, the very real threat to America's homeland posed by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) terrorists led other candidates to find alternative ways of proclaiming their military resolve.
And this brings us to the real public danger that can be created when politicians overpromise-namely, that they are creating false expectations that experts of all persuasions know simply cannot be fulfilled.
Sen. Ted Cruz, winner of the Iowa caucuses, has vowed to "carpet-bomb" ISIS "into oblivion" and has also pledged to bomb ISIS so intensely that it makes the sand "glow." Trump has also vowed to "carpet-bomb" ISIS into defeat. But military experts including present and former generals all warn that such talk promising quick and decisive outcomes misleads citizens because it takes far more than that to defeat a terrorist organization. Also, such massive, indiscriminate bombing will result in massive deaths among innocent civilians. Military and civilian experts say there must be an extensive ground effort, involving troops from U.S. allies in the Middle East and significant numbers of U.S. military advisors.
But there is another category of overpromising that is not about war and peace but can also raise expectations that are unlikely to ever be fulfilled. One prime example stems from the years of relentless Republican efforts to denigrate President Barack Obama's health care program, the Affordable Care Act, now best known by all sides as Obamacare. Republicans reflexively vow to repeal and replace Obamacare-never mind that the repeal cannot succeed. This week, the House failed to gain the two-thirds vote necessary to override Obama's veto of its latest repeal effort.
But recently, Obama's health care legacy was targeted by an unexpected presidential wannabe: Sen. Bernie Sanders. The democratic socialist from Vermont recently proposed a single-payer plan to provide universal health insurance for all Americans. Sanders' plan requires citizens to pay a significant increase in taxes that would be more than compensated by decreases in their insurance premiums.
But Sanders hasn't explained whether his plan would require scrapping Obamacare before it could become a reality. Which, by the way, cannot ever happen. Unless Americans someday elect not just a Democratic-controlled Congress, but a House and Senate dominated by liberal Democrats. Bottom line: no way.
So, as a matter of practical politics, Sanders' plan may have excited liberals to work for his presidential bid. But he also raised health care expectations that have no chance of becoming reality. Which bizarrely sounds a lot like what the Republicans have been doing.