Donald Trump prides himself on his ability to persuade a crowd. “I play to people’s fantasies,” he famously wrote in his bestselling book, The Art of the Deal.
So it’s no surprise that his multitude of campaign promises have tended toward the Don Quixote side of reality. Fix the mess in Washington? Balance the budget while saving all entitlement programs without cutting benefits? And of course there are his many assurances that he will “take care of the women,” and “the blacks” and “the Hispanics.” My personal favorite promise is that people are going to call him at the White House one day and plead with him to stop being such a success. “You’re going to call, and you’re going to say, ‘Mr. President, please, we can’t take it anymore, we can’t win anymore like this, Mr. President, you’re driving us crazy, you’re winning too much, please Mr. President, not so much,’ and I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, we’re going to keep winning because we are going to make America great again.’”
Of course, outlandish promises are a staple in presidential politics. Does anyone truly think Hillary Clinton is actually going to enact a $15 minimum wage or make college and child care free for everyone? Or avoid about 16 devastating scandals, financial and otherwise, should she return to the White House?
As it happens, not all of Donald Trump’s promises are impossible to fulfill. In fact, some of them are almost certain to happen should he win the White House. A few of them, if he actually achieved them, would be pretty amazing. Below, a (modestly serious) list of what Trump could actually achieve, ranked.
1. Making America Great Again
Likelihood: 100 percent
Donald Trump’s well-known campaign slogan is perhaps the most frequent promise he’s made, and also the easiest for him to keep. That’s for one simple reason: No one knows what metric Trump uses to determine American greatness. He could — and almost certainly will — claim that electing him alone made America great again. And who could argue with him? Certainly not Hillary Clinton. She’s already on the record saying, “America never stopped being great.” Nor Barack Obama, who proclaimed, “America is already great.” In other words, Trump’s already got half the country agreeing with him. Trump FTW!
2. ‘If I become president, we’re going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.’
Likelihood: 100 percent
Another easy one.
Mr. Trump is under the impression that this familiar seasonal greeting has been outlawed in America (or at least discouraged). There are, indeed, some isolated instances, limited to certain circumstances, where that is true. One popular rumor that gained traction a while back was that Obama ordered the Veterans Administration to ban the phrase “Merry Christmas” and Christmas trees from various facilities. This was widely circulated as an example of the president’s alleged animus to the religious holiday. Sadly for Obama haters, that rumor was debunked. In any event, it won’t be hard to imagine a president boldly wishing Americans “Merry Christmas.” We already have one who did just that last year, sometime around the time he lit the national — wait for it — Christmas tree.
3. Oreos made in America again
Likelihood: 99 percent
We all know the problem here: A bunch of foreign-made Oreos are taking up valuable shelf space meant for good old American cookies. On the campaign trail, after hearing a story that Oreo-maker Nabisco was moving some jobs to Mexico, Mr. Trump vowed to boycott Oreos until they are again made right here in America. Turns out — they still are. Another Trump win!
But the Oreo business is part of a larger argument Trump has repeatedly made about luring companies and jobs back to America from overseas. If he actually addressed the fact that the United States has (arguably) the highest corporate tax rate in the free world, and Trump actually did cut it dramatically, he might conceivably be able to make some progress on that score, as well.
4. McDonald’s dinner for China
Likelihood: 45 percent
“I would not be throwing him a [state] dinner,” Trump said of China’s President Xi Jinping. “I would get him a McDonald’s hamburger and say we’ve got to get down to work because you can’t continue to devalue [the currency].”
Now honestly — who wouldn’t want to see the president of China’s face when he arrives at the Trump White House and is handed a platter of Big Macs? Perhaps Trump didn’t really intend it, but there is a subversive genius here. What greater tribute to American capitalism and ingenuity is there than the Filet O’Fish? What better way to show China you’re dealing with a totally unpredictable foe than to make him reach into a carton of greasy French fries while being lectured on the currency? If Trump actually did this to the Chinese, he’d probably go up 10 points in U.S. public opinion polls. (The reprisals from China, however, might not be so great.)
The big question is: Do you remove the wrapper before President Xi gets the hamburger? I say, yes. This is the White House, after all.
5. Full repeal of Obamacare
Likelihood: 33 percent
This promise is entirely dependent on what happens in House and Senate elections. If Trump wins the presidency, the GOP keeps the House (which is likely) and a thin Republican majority retains Senate control, then a repeal of Obamacare seems quite likely. Unfortunately for the Trump administration, the chances of retaining a GOP majority in the Senate seem pretty slim. Whether that’s a good or bad thing totally depends on your perspective, of course. But it would thrill the majority of Republicans, who haven’t had much to cheer about in a pretty long time.
6. ‘To be the greatest jobs president God ever created’
Likelihood: 5 percent
Let’s consider that promise for a moment. The last two presidents credited with substantial job growth during their terms were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. During the Reagan years, 16 million private and public sector jobs were created. During the Clinton years, that number ballooned to 23 million. Anything over 23 million would obviously beat that record. But to be the “greatest jobs president God ever created” surely requires a pretty large margin above the current record. So let’s say Trump must create 25-30 million jobs during his presidency to fulfill his promise — which is at least quintuple the number of jobs the last Republican president created over eight years.
There is a little wrinkle here. According to fact checkers, at best 21 million Americans are currently out of work. Which means that the greatest jobs president God ever created will not only give every American a job who wants one, but that several million of us will get two jobs, whether we want it or not. I’m going to call this one something of a stretch.
7. ‘Build a wall with Mexico’
Likelihood: 3.8 percent
It’s hard to imagine how a President Trump would get through his first term without at least attempting to implement the single most memorable promise of his entire campaign. But it’s also hard to see it happening — absent a total uprising from the American electorate that appears not to be in the offing. First, Trump would need Congress to appropriate a huge amount of money for the design, construction and implementation of a 2,000-mile wall across the U.S.-Mexico border. Then he’ll probably have to battle protests and sit-ins all over the southwest. He’ll have to figure out how to build the wall over Native American reservations and waterways. He might have to battle lawsuits from the EPA, state governments and local ranchers. Getting Mexico to pay for it will in retrospect be the easy part.
8. Deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the US
Likelihood: 0.01 percent
We know this promise isn’t going to be kept, because it hasn’t even lasted through the campaign. According to the Washington Post, Trump’s latest plan, announced Tuesday evening, would immediately affect six million immigrants, or half the 11 million he’s promised. And even that’s not very likely.
9. ‘At the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get 95 percent of the African-American vote’
Likelihood: 0 percent
Now this is something that every Republican in America would celebrate. Winning even a significant percentage of the African-American vote would be a step in the right direction, these days. In 2012, Mitt Romney received 5 percent. In 2008 John McCain received 1 percent. Of course, both men ran against America’s first black president. So what about in 2004, when President Bush won reelection? He won a whopping 7 percent of African Americans.
The last time a Republican won 95 percent of the black vote? Well, that hasn’t happened since — since — oh, right. It’s not clear that ever happened, except maybe in the days of Lincoln. In fact, the last time Republicans even got a majority of the black vote was in 1932. Can Trump reverse 88 years of history by the time of his reelection? In a word: nope. But it’s a nice idea. Maybe one of his best.
Matt Latimer is a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is currently a co-partner in Javelin, a literary agency and communications firm based in Alexandria, and contributing editor at POLITICO Magazine.