Turned on the news this morning and the lead story was about Trump announcing he has a secret plan for providing the American people with the perfect health care plan. There are at least two barbs to this fishhook. First, it’s secret. While we all get excited about secrets we should all know that secrets only hide and never make clear. Secondly, the other part of Trump’s caveat was that his secret plan wouldn’t be ready until after the 2020 elections.

Still having a bit of memory remaining my mind immediately flashed back to 1968 when Richard Nixon promised the American people that he had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam and that he wouldn’t be able to reveal it until after the presidential elections.

The reality of Nixon’s secret is that he openly told interviewer David Frost that he never had a plan. Plus, once elected Nixon expanded the war into two neighboring nations and got another 22,000 American troops killed.

I was pleased when a few minuted later I turned on Morning Joe and Joe was having this same deja vu moment about Nixon and what his secret plan got us.

Look, we’ve all seen this before and we’ve seen it several times already with Trump. If anything Trump is a master of creating the diversion that his loyalists will fall for at election time. For the remainder of us, our concern is to make sure that none of us fall victim to the lure of secrets. It’s difficult enough to put faith in the open promise of a politician, let alone the promise that’s all wrapped up in an opaque albeit shiny bubble gum wrapper.