Pretend promises and clarifying cliches

The cliché “October Surprise” has been used every election since 1980, meaning something just before a vote possibly affecting public opinion, and balloting.

This midterm, some wonder about recent promises by President Trump, and recall about another cliché, “Won't get fooled again,” a line locked in to the culture by the 1971 rock anthem by The Who. Referring to one’s determination to avoid repeating a mistake, the resolve can be shaky, of course. (See: Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection despite the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection).

Others wonder about struggling Americans targeted by gimmicks ranging from small checks mailed and big checks promised but undelivered; lifting sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine to buy diesel fuel from them (despite Russia aiding Iran in the war), an amount that’s less than one day’s U.S. consumption of diesel; not ruling out declaring an election “national emergency” and deploying troops (Trump told Time magazine); and announcing a new factory in a state and county needing help.

Take Keokuk, Iowa, in Lee County – where Trump announced a $15 billion Mesabi Metallics steel mill would locate, supposedly bringing 1,750 jobs plus 6,000 construction jobs to build it (“They’ve already started building,” Trump said Sept. 28). Keokuk has lost 40% of its population and many of its jobs since I grew up a few miles away in the 1950s and ’60s. Keokuk’s storied Street Fair used to run from the river to the west edge of town. No more. Also gone is the Electro-Metals Co. and its hundreds of jobs; the Hubinger refinery was bought by a French company that locked out its labor force for about 10 months until workers had to accept concessions; a rubber plant is smaller than then, when some 1,000 people worked there. Even St. Joseph hospital, where I was born, is gone.

Considering that steel mill – Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, “The deal is done. They’re already worked it out” – other cliches come to mind: the newsroom chestnut “If your mother says she loves you, check it out”; “throwing a Hail Mary” in a last-ditch attempt to win, hoping for a miracle; and “the fix is in” when results are predetermined, often by insiders.

First, newscaster Matt Christensen of KWQC-TV 6 in the Quad Cities looked at land records and discovered no major property purchases tied to Mesabi Metallics (MM). “Officials say they don’t have details about its plans, and no permits have been filed,” he reported.

The India conglomerate, Essar Group, that owns MM has a troubled past. “Mesabi and Essar Group have a long history of missed deadlines and unfulfilled job promises,” reported CBS News’ Lana Zak, who noted that Essar Steel Minnesota filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and was renamed Mesabi Metallics, and – according to local sources she cited – has received billions of dollars in loans from Russia’s state-owned bank. Another subsidiary, Essar Oil, was renamed Nayara Energy and is now half-owned by Russia’s gas company, Rosneft, Al Jazeera reports.

Erin Murphy and Hailey Peck of the Cedar Rapids Gazette also reported Essar failing to pay contractors and Essar’s Canadian subsidiary’s financial woes. Journalist John Myers in AgWeek reported an unusual lawsuit where MM sued Essar Global for $1 billion, claiming its parent company took hundreds of millions of dollars from its Minnesota mine site for other projects.

Next, close races in Iowa might explain Trump’s attention to the Hawkeye State, where Republicans dominate the legislature. And Iowa lawmakers approved incentives of $1.36 billion for Mesabi Metallics in a rushed, special session purportedly influenced by GOP power-brokers Chuck Larson (ex-state Republican chair) and Jason Miller (a former Trump adviser who’s reportedly been an MM lobbyist). Republican State Sen. Dan Dawson called the package the “largest corporate giveaway in the state of Iowa’s history.”

Beside unrealized DOGE checks, tariff “rebates” and what seems like Trump’s $5,000 bribe to every American if the GOP retains majorities in the House and Senate, learning from past mistakes must include another Trump pledge.

In 2017,  President Trump and Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational corporation, promised a $10 billion plant and 13,000 new jobs in Wisconsin (a battleground state). Within four years, the project was cut to $670 million and 1,200 jobs, and the promised 20-million-square-foot campus never materialized despite state and local governments spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying land, razing houses and building infrastructure.

Despite desperate, transparent ploys to persuade voters to believe suspicious, if not dishonest, promises (reminiscent of another cliché – the Marx Brothers’ “Who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” ), days before the Nov. 3 election it remains unclear whether Americans seeking relief from a weak job market, high fuel prices and other economic pressures will forget about Trump’s tariffs creating higher prices for consumers, the Iran War, ICE violence, the Epstein files, etc. to be gullible again.