The Republican primaries are the last hope of American civilization and the exact opposite of American Idol.  Every season of American Idol, we started out with a lot of weirdos, and we ended up with a winner.  In the Republican primaries, we start out with a lot of winners, and we wind up with a weirdo.  As such, I voted for Trump because my wife made me do it.  It isn't a glorious reason, but it's true, and now that I've done it, I'm glad I did it.  Both of us were against him, and then, when he wasn't Hillary, we were for him.  I'm still for him, except now I actually like him.  This is the joy of having low expectations.

There are people who voted for Trump because they believed in him.  To me, most of these people are crazy.  The man could barely string together a sentence, and when he did, it was as short as the American attention span.  He gave the impression that he had never read a serious book about history or politics or economics or religion or ethics.  That anyone could believe so many contradictory promises from one man was itself incredible.  He could say one thing in a debate and then walk out to a reporter and deny he said it at all, and his fan base fawned.  They swallowed it all and somehow believed that when he gave two contradictory promises, it was the other promise that was sentenced to failure.  These people are the ones complaining about Donald Trump being a failure.  In reality, they are the failures.

There is reason to believe that Trump is a failure – but only if you took him too seriously.  Obamacare is still standing, and the wall is still missing, and the Mexicans aren't paying for it.  The travel ban didn't happen as we wanted.  Nobody really knew what the swamp was, so Trump was unable to drain it.  Taxes haven't been reformed yet, and candy is still paid for.

At the bottom of this list of broken (or delayed) promises, we have the fulfilled: the support of our police officers instead of our thugs; the deportation of criminals by ICE and the border patrol; the election of competent judges, probably the most important thing to come of the election; and the threat against all sanctuary cities.  Trump has threatened to ban men who think they're women from the military and has done everything he can to give control of education to the states.  He has cut red tape wherever he finds it, and he gave us Secretary of Defense Mattis.  His wielding of federal power has led Democrats to discover states' rights, and he has given intelligent men one thing we have greatly overrated: a constant stream of deliveries so bungled and uncouth that no parody of them is even necessary.  We may wake up every morning feeling smarter than the president, and we have yet to calculate the immeasurable effects of this fact upon the self-esteem of American citizens.

There are people who voted for Trump who do not appreciate these victories.  They can't understand the limits of executive power or checks and balances or that there is a difference between a president and an emperor.  They don't understand that the downside to having a political outsider is that he doesn't know how to work politics.  They believe that in an age of nuclear power, coal is coming back, and it's coming back for good.  They believe that gas prices are raised and lowered with a diktat from the commander in chief.

The fact of the matter is that these people are the reason for their own failure, and that some politician, ages ago, found out that the only way he could win is by spinning webs of complete hooey.  In truth, this is how presidential elections are won today – and this is why we can't get a George Washington or a Benjamin Franklin or an Alexander Hamilton in office today.  The people who didn't know that many of the promises were already broken the second they were given because to fulfill them in totality is always technically impossible.

President Trump is going to deliver on more issues, and he is going to fail on more issues, and unless he does something too disastrously stupid, I am going to enjoy him anyway.  At this point, we know what he is trying to do and what he isn't.  Many of the things he is trying to do are the most right-wing, difficult, politically incorrect, and principled things he had "promised" to deliver.  If this isn't enough, then I say our last hopes are done for.  They say that in America, you get the president you deserve.  If this is the case, we really deserve worse, and we got better, and it was only a matter of luck that we got him.  

The question at this point is not whether Trump is honest or dishonest, delivering or not delivering.  It is whether universal suffrage was ever a good idea, and whether you should be able to vote for a president if you don't know what exactly the president can't do.

Jeremy Egerer is the author of the troublesome essays on Letters to Hannah, and he welcomes followers on Twitter and Facebook.