Greg Milam, US Correspondent
The legendary American swindler Mel Weinberg once told me: "No-one wants to admit they've been conned - that's why they keep coming back for more."We keep putting faith in the conman, he said, because the alternative is to recognise we've been done.
The millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump will soon find out if they were right to believe his campaign promises - or if they have fallen for the greatest mind trick in political history.
Plenty of people - including high profile Republicans like Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio - accused the billionaire of being a conman during the presidential campaign.
And since he won, his big-slogan threats and promises - "lock her up", 'build the wall", "drain the swamp" - have either been disavowed or significantly fudged.
On that "swamp" thing, supposedly exposing and removing the powerful special interests who riddle Washington bureaucracy, even top advisers admit it will not be a priority.
Trump will have to walk the walk very soon and the problems that reach the Oval Office are usually the most intractable ones.
No sign of even a representative from the angry, white, working class who propelled Trump to the White House. Not even a token one.
Those voters remain, it seems, convinced that Trump was the right choice and they dismiss media punditry and the significance of his somewhat unpredictable pre-inauguration tweets.
But Trump will have to walk the walk very soon and the problems that reach the Oval Office are usually the most intractable ones.
How long will it be before the leaders of Russia or North Korea try to test him? How will he react?
Roger Mansfield, a small business owner from Pennsylvania, told the Associated Press recently: "We have to trust him. He's going to be our president.
"Wishing him to fail would be like getting on an airliner and hoping the two pilots don't know what they're doing. My gut says he will do the right thing."
Ask Americans for their predictions for the Trump presidency and you will hear everything from a Reagan-style "Morning in America" to their next president getting bored or impeached.
Or what the Beverly Hills resident told the Los Angeles Times: "He's the person who is going to make America glorious again. I love him.
"I believe that he is going to be like Richard Nixon."
America has never forgotten how his presidency ended.
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