I recently downloaded ChatGPT and asked: What are the three top reasons why an undecided person would choose to support President Trump? It replied: (1) Economic Priorities and Policy Preferences; (2) Immigration and Border Policy; (3) Distrust of Political Establishment. Let’s see what the scoreboard says about each.
Economic Priorities and Policy Preferences: I take that to mean people liked Trump’s vow to lower prices and create more jobs, laudable goals to be sure. However, from August 2024 to August 2025 food prices have risen by 3.2 precent according the Department of Agriculture. The consumer price index in July 2023 was 309 rising to 330.5 as of this July. Prices have gone up, not down.
The unemployment rate in May, 2023 was 3.6 percent. As of most recent data, it was 4.4 percent. Unemployment has gone up, not down.
An AXIOS pole of November 24 found 65 percent of all Americans believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction. An American Enterprise Institute pole puts the number at 75 percent. Trump is making us poorer and more insecure about our jobs. That’s not making us greater.
Immigration and Border Policy: Congress and presidents have long neglected fixing our immigration system. A major Trump promise was to fix it, mostly by reducing border crossings and deporting criminals who are foreign nationals. Border crossings are indeed down and deportations up. But that is being done by clearly inhumane and likely illegal means.
As of this month, the CATO Institute (a conservative, libertarian leaning think tank) reports 73 percent of ICE detainees have no convictions of any kind. Only five percent do. We are incarcerating and deporting people who have been leading law-abiding lives, some here for many years, and very few criminals who Trump said would be ICE’s targets. There have even been a few U.S. citizens caught up in the ICE capades!
Then, of course, there are the recent bombings of foreign national’s boats in international waters with no evidence of their intentions or due process for their crews. So far, U.S. forces have killed about 90 seafarers in international waters. Those bombings are violations of both U.S. and international law, not to mention any precepts of moral imperatives.
Trust in Government: An OECD 2024 report finds only 28 percent of Americans trust the government, lowest among OECD nations. Countries such as Switzerland (No. 1 at 82.5 percent), Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany all have trust levels above 50 percent. And they all have much larger public sectors because they provide more extensive services to their citizens than do we.
If ChatGPT is to be believed, Trump is failing at all three major goals his supporters expected him to pursue. Three strikes and you’re out!
Patrick Taylor lives in Ridgeland.
