Your Cynicism is completely justified. Congratulations on bringing up one of the most important topics, that never seems to resonate in partisan politics.

Judge everything they are doing based on their actions and not constantly on the empty words designed to please the partisan crowds. Making excuses and empty promises is the constant game of keeping people occupied with the news cycle of today and not on real outcomes. The rules are the same...When your 'guy' is in power, we'll just ignore all the atrocities committed in the name of the greater good, and foam at the mouth with irrational fear and over the top nonsense gossip (other guy in power), unless it involves foreign intervention and war mongering based on the National Security doctrine (crowds and media cheering from the rooftops). There is a long and tainted history, of complete reversals of any logical and reasonable policies that may have originally been cheered for in campaigns from die hard partisan supporters and reality.

The Qanon phenomenon is a great example of distracting and using deep state psychological manipulation to convince die hard supporters, that it's 'all going to plan' or 'it's different this time'. It will only ever be different when the actions match the rhetoric and words being thrown around in the public sphere.