Groceries and gas; reduce those prices on day one. Mass deportations of criminals and rapists engaging in violent crime and driving up housing prices. No more “forever foreign wars” with those “silly rules” that prevent victory. No matter how asinine, no matter how deceitful and deceptive, keep it simple and appeal to fear.

It was campaigning at its worst and lowest. But it worked. The candidate who walked off with a carload of classified documents, who incited an insurrection that provoked an invasion of the Capitol that forced congress members of all persuasion to flee for safety fearing for their lives, and on Capitol grounds a gallows intended to hang VP Pence; it was all rewarded with election to a second term as the world’s most powerful man.

Such a script would have been rejected by Hollywood as too farfetched. But this is reality, proving once again that reality is stranger than fiction.

Flush with victory and encouraged by a submissive Republican congress willing to surrender power to their president and follow his orders, Trump immediately imposed tariffs that tanked international markets for farm products and raised farm production costs. He turned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) into a national police force wearing masks and no I.D. whisking people with accents and brown skins into unmarked vehicles and into detention centers with no access to legal counsel or notification of family members. Inadequate training for newly recruited agents and bounties for arrests resulted in countless atrocities, including murder of innocent citizens.

Whether its tariffs, deportations, sacking heads of supposedly independent agencies, ignoring court orders, or investigations designed to punish political enemies, is any of this illegal? Of course it is not legal. And much of which is not clearly illegal is questionably sufficient to warrant litigation.

His strategy is to “flood the zone.” Neither the courts, the media, nor the citizens can keep up with all the chicanery. This strategy has served Trump well, so why would he change now when he has been rewarded with the pinnacle of power.

Many Trump voters insist that they voted for Trump because of his promise to reduce prices of gas and groceries. And however much voters agreed with deportation of criminals, these same voters don’t agree with the cruelty of ICE. “We didn’t vote for this,” voters insist.

Which brings us to Trump’s third broken promise, no more foreign wars.

We should not have been surprised at Trump’s war against Iran, or his failure to consult the congress, European allies, or the public. It is not his nature to ask permission or build coalitions. Commanding the most world’s strongest military machine is enough for him to do whatever he pleases. Trump doesn’t believe, nor care, that “America first” means “America Alone.”

Clearly, Trump, with the aid of his tough-talking, unqualified Secretary of Defense — it’s still the Defense Department, not the War Department — loves playing the “tough guy.”

Surely, Trump alleged, the war would be short and sweet and the world would be safer. It was inevitable and predictable that American air power and rocket technology would destroy buildings and kill people. But reigning death and destruction alone does not result in winning the peace, or even achieving the questionable opaque objectives.

Trump’s reasons to attack vary. Secretary of State Rubio tried to “clarify” the matter. Rubio asserts that Trump knew that after an impending attack on Iran by Israel, Iran would follow with attacking American installations. Therefore, he would have to attack Iran first. It’s weird that the chief agent of American foreign policy informs us that Israel dictates when we go to war.

Trump, with no evidence or even explicit agreement by Intelligence chief Gabbard, insists that impending attack by Iran was near. Yes, Iran was undoubtedly working on developing nuclear weapons. Which brings us back to the most disastrous, counter-productive, and dangerous act of Trump back in 2018 — the ignorant move of abandoning the agreement that was not given sufficient attention by the asleep-at-the switch media.

Under the Obama administration, with laborious, extensive effort, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a landmark agreement reached between Iran and the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, and Germany. Its primary goal was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions. Iran was monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency; it verified that Iran was holding up its end of the agreement.

Against the advice of advisors, including Trump-appointed Secretary of defense James Mattis, Trump tore up the agreement in 2018, giving Iran the incentive to keep developing a nuclear weapon.

Trump insisted he could get a better deal. He ostensibly had a potential deal on the table even though negotiations were at a standstill. Then, without warning, Trump unleashed the military, killing the ayatollah.

It was over on day one, Trump insists. So, it’s over? It will be over when I say it is, “when I feel it in my bones,” Trump boasts.

But, oops! An elementary geography student looking at the map could spot the Strait of Hormuz and suggest that there might be a problem here.

Sure enough, that body of water, 21 miles across at its narrowest, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil travels, is blocked by low cost mines and drones, with oil tankers an easy target. Trump, with his usual ignorance, urges them to “just have some guts.”

But even the mighty U.S. Navy is stymied, finding it a complex matter to accompany tankers safely through the strait that is surely mined and vulnerable to short range missile strikes. The essential mine sweepers are on the move — to Philadelphia and decommissioning, recently thought to be no longer needed.

Had there been any planning at all for a blocked strait? Defense Secretary Pistol Pete Hegseth insisted that, of course they had. He then follows with double speak; there is no problem. “The only thing prohibiting transit in the strait right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that.”

Brilliant! The defense department is led by a tough guy who can do a lot of pushups.

With oil prices rising, Trump asked, actually demanded, that other nations, including NATO countries, even China, assist in opening the strait. Trump is furious at lack of enthusiasm for that task, even calling them “cowards.”

Failing to attract assistance, Trump then assures the world that “We don’t need it.”

The strait is blocked and Iran still has their enriched uranium hidden and out of reach — except perhaps by use of ground troops.

Additional warships and a few more thousand Marines are on the way. Pistol Pete Hegseth is asking congress for an additional $200 billion for Trump’s war he claims has already been won. More human and monetary costs appear inevitable.

Trump should have left the JCPOA intact as cooler heads had advised.

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears monthly in the Monroe Times.