Donald Trump has signed a slew of executive actions since he took office January 20. Each signature has been accompanied by a great deal of outrage from the public. Protests are popping up all across the nation, with many protesters demanding Trump’s impeachment or removal from office.

But here’s the rub. The public voted Trump into office and, no matter how any of us feel about that, he most likely will remain there for at least the next four years. The protesters have made their mark, and said their peace, and now it’s time to figure out what we can actually do to help our nation. Trump was elected into office by the people – the sooner we accept that and move on, the sooner we will be able to focus on the ‘what’ rather than the ‘who.’ Trump has already done a lot in office, using his power of executive actions.

So far, Trump has signed 17 executive actions, revising everything from Immigration Law, to the Dakota Pipeline, to Abortion. Some are outraged by the sheer number of these executive actions. But to provide a little perspective; Trump signed six executive orders in his first week in office, Obama signed five. So is it really the volume of these powers of the executive branch that has many people calling foul? Or is it the content?

If it is the content, then let me ask this question - why is everyone so surprised? Trump said, on the campaign trail, that he was going to repeal NAFTA. He did. He said he was going to kill TPP. He did that too. And now he’s moving ahead with orders on immigration, the wall and other aspects of what he outlined when he was running for President.

So now he’s in office, and guess what, we are all getting what he said he would deliver. So why the sudden and massive outrage?

It might be that Trump is doing something that no other President has done in the past - actually move forward with his campaign promises. For decades, the voting public has been trained to NOT believe what candidates promise on the trail, because so many of these promises never see the light once the candidate is elected. So it could be that the surprise is that this very non-traditional political outsider is simply not a politician, but a pragmatic task-master instead.

And, regardless how you feel about the actual policies, you can’t say now that he is doing anything surprising.

So to me, the bigger question might be -- why did so many voters not take him at his word, and work harder to keep him from rising to the most-powerful position in the world? It seems like the chance to stop him was at the voting booths before the election, not on the streets after the election.

The question I am asking, though, is ‘Why is everyone so surprised that he is doing this?’ Every time Trump signs a document, people are blown away that he has done it again. But, for the first time in history, basically, our President has done what they promised to do during their campaign. Trump told us what his plans would be when he got into Office. We knew he wanted to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, so why is everyone surprised that he signed an Executive Order to do so? Trump’s promise to build a wall was one of the most, if not the most, well known aspects of his campaign. Did everyone who voted for him think that he was kidding? In June of 2015, Trump is quoted saying "I will build a great wall -- and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me --and I'll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." That was in 2015 and he has talked about it ever since then. Now He’s in office, and he made it happen, so why the surprise?

This isn’t the only campaign promise that Trump has brought to fruition since Inauguration day. A huge part of Trump’s campaign was his thoughts on immigration, specifically illegal immigration. In December of 2015, Trump is quoted saying “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again." Now that he has signed an Executive Order to remove illegal aliens, why is there such surprise? Again, Trump has been standing firm in his beliefs regarding illegal immigrants in the United States since 2015. It is 2017 and he signed a document for the removal of aliens who “In the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.” (Executive Order: Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, Jan. 25, 2017).

These aren’t the only two Executive Actions Trump has already taken, but they are undoubtedly two of the most controversial. He has signed Presidential Memorandums regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline. Trump has even taken action regarding his Pro-Life views, signing the “Presidential Memorandum Regarding the Mexico City Policy” which bars U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding organizations and programs that “support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

The reality is, Trump told us exactly what he planned to do when he got into Office, and he has followed through on that. No matter what we say, nothing he has done should come as a surprise. We have known what his goals were since he began campaigning, and we, as a people, elected him into Office based on that campaign. He has done nothing but follow through on his campaign promises via Executive Actions.

So, Trump is following through on his promises. That being said, I took a look at some of the other statements Trump made on the trail, and here is what we can look forward to down the road:

What, then, should we expect in the following weeks? Here are some more of the things Donald Trump said while campaigning that could potentially lead to more executive actions:

• Bomb the S*** out of ISIS? :“ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, certain areas of oil that they took away...They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the s--- out of 'em. I would just bomb those suckers. That's right. I'd blow up the pipes... I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you'll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new — it'll be beautiful." (November, 2015)
• Prosecute Hillary Clinton? : "If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into [Hillary Clinton’s] (missing email) situation," Trump said, "because there has never been so many lies, so much deception."(October 2016) Although, Trump has since said that he will no longer follow through on this.
• Bring back waterboarding as a method of interrogation? : “I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” (February 2016)
• Vaccination reform? : "I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time. Same exact amount... but you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump -- I mean, it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child, and we've had so many instances, people that work for me... [in which] a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back and a week later had a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic." (September, 2015)