I used to think the average conservative voter was a generally decent person who just believed some dumb stuff. But the actions of the recent Trump administration, DOGE’s cuts, and the general response of his supporters has deeply, deeply hurt my opinion of conservatives.
I often see the sentiment that at the end of the day, we all want the same things. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think they want to hurt people, people like me and the people I care about, for extremely dumb reasons. I saw a tweet that said that MAGA was “Pride for stupid assholes” and honestly that’s how I see it. It’s gotten to the point where when I see selfish antisocial behavior in public, I’m assuming that guy is a Trump supporter. That guy driving 60 mph in his charger down my neighborhood side street? Probably voted for Trump. That guy parking his lifted pickup across three parking spaces? That dude playing loud music while hiking? Most likely Trump voters.
Anyway, my opinion of conservatives was never very high and it’s taken an absolute nose dive. I can’t be the only one who has gone from “agree to disagree” to “you are deeply stupid and evil and I cannot work with you.” I know a lot of it is social media, but these are real people behind these accounts saying these things. It’s despicable.
Anyone feel like their opinion of conservatives has dropped drastically?
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I used to think the average conservative voter was a generally decent person who just believed some dumb stuff. But the actions of the recent Trump administration, DOGE’s cuts, and the general response of his supporters has deeply, deeply hurt my opinion of conservatives.
I often see the sentiment that at the end of the day, we all want the same things. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think they want to hurt people, people like me and the people I care about, for extremely dumb reasons. I saw a tweet that said that MAGA was "Pride for stupid assholes" and honestly that’s how I see it. It’s gotten to the point where when I see selfish antisocial behavior in public, I’m assuming that guy is a Trump supporter. That guy driving 60 mph in his charger down my neighborhood side street? Probably voted for Trump. That guy parking his lifted pickup across three parking spaces? That dude playing loud music while hiking? Most likely Trump voters.
Anyway, my opinion of conservatives was never very high and it’s taken an absolute nose dive. I can’t be the only one who has gone from "agree to disagree" to "you are deeply stupid and evil and I cannot work with you." I know a lot of it is social media, but these are real people behind these accounts saying these things. It’s despicable.
Anyone feel like their opinion of conservatives has dropped drastically?
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yes. the new regime is evil and incompetent.
I saw a report showing that 25% of Americans are inclined to support autocracy. That’s a stunning number. Also means that they are down 3:1.
Not for me. These people were like this before trump. He gives them license to act the way they have always felt. And they love him for it.
I feel like I’m being negatively polarized to them because the entire administration, including unelected lunatic Elon Musk, are doing a terrifying combination of malicious and incompetent things in order to systematically break nearly every function of government and enrich themselves personally. All while burning every bridge America has built across the world in the process, acting with dangerous arrogance and negligence, and doing jack shit to help Americans with anything.
I cannot stress this enough: Fuck them in every possible way.
Hard to drop drastically, since I already saw them as weak-minded, stupid, uneducated, and morally vile.
But they have managed to go even lower than that.
So, maybe not drastically, but I have gone from "very little" respect for the MAGA morons to no respect at all.
> I know a lot of it is social media, but these are real people behind these accounts saying these things. It’s despicable.
One should not assume that there is actually a person behind social media messages, or presume that they are stating their own actual opinions. People are paid to shape social media opinion, and one mechanism of that is posting through fake accounts.
Or having a bit do it for you.
Getting an LLM to generate inflammatory comment on a social media site is trivial.
My parents are maga and it kills me. I genuinely love and appreciate them, and I’m also horrified and confused that they support this.
I’ve just been sending them news articles every few days. I have to pick the worst of the worst, or the ones that go directly against something that they’ve told me in the past. There are so many to choose from that it is not hard. I ask, "do you still support this man?" They don’t return my texts, but they call me to talk about other, non political things. I try to counter misinformation slowly and deliberately when they share it.
I feel like if I was made a mental separation between true Trump supporters, Trump voters that just vote for him because they’re default Republican, swing voters and low information voters.
I’ve had very little respect for the true MAGA voters from the beginning.
I think what’s changed is my tolerance and respect for people who want to tell me they are real conservatives or libertarian or even centrists who are exposed to ideas outside of right wing media and they can still support Trump. At this point that’s extended to them supporting Republicans at all.
Sometimes people in the sub will talk about how they go over to places like Ask Trump supporters or whatever it’s called and I just don’t understand why they bother. Those are all people who have been exposed to all the information and choose to still support Trump. Those people are lying in the extreme either to themselves or to whoever they’re talking to. I don’t know why I need to tolerate extreme liars.
I certainly understand how you have come to your current opinions about Republicans.
But honest question; it sounds like you have hit the bottom with regards to Republicans. Where do you go from here?
For example what if the next generation of MAGA wins the presidency in 2028 or 2032 (or dont, but continue to hold power in Congress); and they continue to push the envelope even further. How do you continue to share the country with them?
And if you can’t how do we reconcile the situation?
I will speak to this about something I heard from someone who was talking about a relatively controversial person.
This controversial individual supported Trump in the election; however, since then has not been shy to say this is fucked up to a lot of things Trump has passed.
This obviously generates discussion and the discussion that was had was do we reward this turn around. Some say no this is what you asked for and used your platform for. There should be no acceptance.
Others argue that if we want to win next time we need to stop alienating people as they start to realize they made a mistake.
Plenty of people will face the consequences for what they voted for unknowingly so its not on us necessarily to punish.
Personally I am fine with bringing them in on a Okay We Forgive But We Dont Forget type thing. We know you are voting in your self interest.
(I continued to use controversial person because the name itself would probably elicit a reaction and bias)
I have nothing but negative thoughts about anyone who supported trump again. For the sake of my sanity I have ceased interacting with them as much as possible, I can’t tolerate their bullshit anymore and if there is a light at the end of this hell there will not be any forgiveness.
People keep acting like this is some kind of radical change, but I don’t see it as one. This is the same admin, supported by the same citizens and institutions, that we had the first time around. Really, they’re the same ones we called the Tea Party 20 years ago. The only difference is that they’re on step 5 instead of step 2.
it isnt trump winning
After trump won, I had resolved that while we should fight harder against him, we should be nicer and more sympathetic to his supporters to build affinity with them, understand their material needs, and work to get some larger working class consciousness going.
its been all the shit after trump won that has polarized me
its been the rampant attacks on immigrants, the stripping of visas from students, the transphobia, the disregard for separation of powers, and how so few trump supporters are budging in their views and worse, how many are cheerring
I fail to see the humanity in a trump supporter right now.
Yes.
No. Everything is going exactly as expected and predicted. There is a massive contingent of Americans who will touch a stove they know will burn them just because they were warned about how hot the stove is. A lot of those same people will turn the heat up and touch it again and again. I have viewed them that way for years now. Nothing is different.
Yeah. Sadly.
They hate me so why shouldn’t I hate them?
Yes.
I don’t like seeing people kidnapped off the street by thugs.
I don’t like minorities, the LGBTQ community, and others bullied, harassed, and marginalized in order to satisfy white evangelicals and their ridiculous grievances.
I don’t appreciate the prospect of a completely unnecessary economic downturn in the very near future, having to pay even more in taxes while billionaires get tax cuts, or possibly losing a social security as part of my retirement in a couple of decades.
Yes, you could say I’m polarized pretty goddamned negatively against Trumpers.
Before I might give Trump voters the benefit of the doubt. Now I do not. They are either on board with his white supremacy, or they are willing to look the other way for monetary gain (if they make north of $450k), or they don’t know how anything works.
It’s all ingroup / outgroup stuff. We’re great, empathetic species….within the tribe. Our brains can deal with about 150 people as individuals. Beyond that, we use shorthand. These people don’t want you to be hurt, since you’re not real to them. They want some phantom "libtard" that exists in their head to be hurt. If they knew you, they’d probably upgrade you to "one of the good ones." In reality, we’re all "good ones" but we can’t process that, so here we are.
What we need is a) more skepticism towards social media, and b) an external enemy to keep us hating outwards, like during the Cold War. The first will hopefully happen gradually, like how people adjusted to radio and newspapers. The second might happen once Trump is gone and we can ramp up anti-Russian propaganda again. Bleak, I know.
by now, we were supposed to be fighting socio-economic battle against corporate special interests and corrupt judges.
that is gone. we are now fighting to maintain our way of life and our rights.
Before 2016, I considered a couple of Republicans my friends, and I knew a lot of people who I wouldn’t voluntary associate with because they’re assholes, who were apolitical. Trump came along, my Republican friends voted for Clinton, and the asshole crowd decided they were Trump supporters.
I decided at that point that I wasn’t willing to associate with anyone who would voluntarily associate with Trump supporters.
After 2024, I don’t even want to share a country with them. I’m going to spend what little remains of my life advocating for their deportation. In all likelihood, I will be disappointed. But, I can comfort myself by taking pleasure in their misfortune, which will surely be frequent.
Less negatively toward Trump voters, much, much more negatively toward Republican elected officials.
Many Trump voters have shown immediate buyer’s remorse this time. Yeah, it would have been way better if they had listened to us when we warned them this would happen, but at least some of them are willing to admit they were wrong this time.
Trump-supporting elected officials are all scum, every last one. Either they truly support him and they are evil, or they are just pretending to out of fear or lust for power, in which case they are sh*tty human beings with zero principle or integrity.
Yep, it’s gone to hate and scorn.
They’re not my fellow Americans. They’re damned cultist enemies who need to be stopped at every chance.
I’m not going to be tolerant of people who want me dead, deported, or enslaved.
Not really. The problem with discussing the American conservative voter is that it is a phantom — a mercurial concept that never seems to materialize in anything outside of elected leadership. The people who actually vote for these things aren’t conservatives in the sense you would recognize the term (i.e. like Reagan or Bush), they are effectively illiterate when it comes to politics, believing contradictory and silly things, usually some strange mixture of American civil and religious mythos: life is sacred until it’s born, our military makes us safer, we all should have the right to private healthcare, etc. etc. None of it is the clean package you would expect.
Christian nationalism is probably the closest, coherent threat you would find broad support for in the category of what we think of as American conservative voters, but the American brand of Christianity is so watered down and bereft of moral obligation or sincerity that it is effectively the equivalent of subscribing to a self-help program. It is unlikely to ever reach any critical mass of the population.
I can now never feel friendship with one who heiled in Trump after the coup attempt. However, they justify it, I don’t feel any sympathy for them.
Not really.
I grew up MAGA before it had that name, so my view of the supporters has been the same since I fully left that in the mid-2000s or so. There are just slightly more of them than I used to think which is the primary disappointment.
I genuinely hate Republicans now. I thoroughly despise them and I no longer am willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. Far as I care, if you voted for Trump in 2024 you are a fascist piece of shit and your dead to me.
I am always a little weary of emotionally declaring war on half of society, but I guess I’ve become more elitist. I used to think 2016 was a moment where the stars aligned for something unusually bad to happen, but now I’m much more convinced that these people are just incredibly stupid and will never change.
>Anyone feel like their opinion of conservatives has dropped drastically?
Well, we were told that we all had TDS for questioning his cabinet picks and now his team for national defense leaked classified info while a journalist was present. We also told them that the tariffs are going to drive prices up and were informed that we had TDS for that too. Fortunately for them, he delayed tariffs on goods compliant with the USMCA until April 2, but I can imagine once the retaliatory tariffs begin and several months pass the liberals here will probably be validated in this area too.
So to answer your question, yes, I can imagine it’s dropped pretty significantly when you’re constantly being told you’re mentally ill only for the things you expressed concern over to slowly (but surely) be proven correct.
From 2016-2020, I would say I lost “a lot” of respect for trump supporters, but didn’t want to lose relationships with friends or family over it. I could maintain cordial relations.
Since the election, I’ve lost all the respect I had left for them. They’re dirtbags, through and through, even if they act nice to you personally. They wouldn’t hesitate to sell you down the river if they thought they’d benefit financially from it. I want nothing to do with them.
im being negatively polarized yes, but not out of partisanship, but out of accurate evaluation of their negative effects on society.
I wouldnt call it polarization to be in opposition to bad people. Thats just an emergent property of being a good person.
Pretty much. Trump tried on multiple fronts to steal the 2020 election (and still claims he won the 2020 election), incited a riot at the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the election results, and has now pardoned almost all of the January 6th rioters who were convicted of crimes. It seems obvious to me that those were all really bad things he did, but for anyone who voted for Trump in 2024 it wasn’t a big deal. That causes me to think worse things about Trump voters now than I did during his first term.
Oh yeah
I mean this in all seriousness, if I needed a babysitter for the evening, and my only viable pick was a Trump supporter, I’d just cancel my plans first.
I think American unity is pretty much charred to a crisp and resting on a platter
I suppose so. Under GWB, for example, I didn’t think more than a small handful should have been considered criminals who have no business in government. Under Trump, I can’t think of a single reason to not treat every single elected GOP person and their senior campaign staff as domestic enemies engaged in a coup.
2016: "So he’s an asshole but he knows the system is broken, after all – he uses it. Plus, his opponent is a crook. I’m voting for him."
2020: "So he is a climate change-denying, racist, lying, rapist who spread enough disinformation about a vaccine that he created that 1 million people died – but he can complete a sentence, so I’m voting for him"
2024: "He can’t complete a sentence, he denies climate change, he plans to uproot the entire country, he tried to overthrow the government last time he lost, he’s a rapist – in fact he raped children, he’s one of Epstein’s best friends, he’s a treasonous piece of shit, his economic policy is objectively worse than Kamala’s, his foreign policy is objectively worse than Kamala’s, in fact every single one of his policies is worse than Kamala’s – and measurably so, and has been proven to be so by dozens of experts in each respective field. His previous vice president has come out and said he should never be president again, his current pick for vice president refuses to answer even the most basic of questions, even Dick Cheney isn’t far right enough to fall for his bullshit, and while he publicly denounces Project 2025, he could not be more linked to it. He’s a convicted felon for multiple crimes that he DID commit, and he’s been known to have connections to organized crime… However, I’m voting for him anyways."
I understood voting for him in 2016 – in fact I almost did myself.
I hated the idea of voting for him in 2020 – but I didn’t like, not understand it.
I don’t think I can do that this time. He is objectively a terrible person and easily the most corrupt American president in our nation’s history.
Only as a result of their own continued actions.
Yes, it’s been the same here.
I used to think they were just decent people whom I had philosophical and policy disagreements with. But after everything that’s gone on over the past decade, I realize for many of them that’s just not the case. Many of them have a morally bankrupt ideology, and just want to see the world burn. All they care about is narrow self-interest and feeling better than others.
So now I just treat them as if they operate in bad faith. Thats why I can’t stand when people try to say we’re polarized just because we disagree. That is false. We’re polarized because about 30% of the population decided they want to be antisocial and destroy the country as long as it makes them feel good, and the rest of us just have to suffer. That’s not a mere policy disagreement like setting the tax rates. This is life and death. The cruelty they’re willing to accept against their countrymen is disgusting.
So yes OP my opinion of them has dropped dramatically.
I believe them to be brainwashed by propaganda, not evil.
Republicans are in a cult that gets them to act against even their own morals and values b/c they’ve been deluded into believing a completely false reality.
I pitied them. That pity is starting to run thin. There is a massive empathy deficit among conservatives, and that’s at the core of it all. I try to recognize that I have no more or less value as a human being than an undocumented immigrant, or a MAGA supporter. Hell, I voted for GW Bush in 2000, considered myself a libertarian, and actually developed interest in the men’s rights movement. But before it really, really took hold, I found some alternative news sources and found myself going more and more to the left. Even now, when confronted by republican sourced facts, I question myself. I often felt like I could have become MAGA as well.
But just because I have empathy that doesn’t mean I have limitless patience. And that is running out these days. You tell them a fact that is counter to their beliefs, they just dig their heels in. Don’t rethink, reconsider, or try their own truly independent checking. I sometimes try to re evaluate my positions, especially if my choices have led to negative outcomes. It’s scary, but it’s necessary. And I think that more people on the right need to re evaluate themselves in the light of what’s going on today. Are you as empathetic and giving as you think you are? I personally am inclined to believe I’m not, and work to be better than that. There’s a reason why in the paragraph above I deliberately said “I try to recognize that I have no more or less value as a human being”. Not “I know” or “I am”.
*raises hand*
I think Hillary was right in 2016. Half are bad, half just don’t know. That’s been my opinion since.
Yup!
Their guy told them over and over what he’d do if he won and they all said he didn’t really mean it. They’re fools, fools that sent the country to hell in a hand basket with their eyes covered, fingers in their ears screaming "la la la la I can’t hear you." I have no more compassion for these gawd damn lemmings.
Yes, I think Trump’s actions are negatively polarizing me against him even more.
Yes. Right-wingers make every effort to punish anyone who attempts to understand them or humanize their actions, So I refuse to put effort into building that bridge.
Absolutely.
I assume they’re a Republican if they’re a pos too. Like anyone giving off small dick, big car energy, right in the trump pile. It used to be harder to tell, most BMW/AUDI drivers who fell in that category fell either way, but not anymore, they’re right next to the lifted f250.
First Trump term they were assholes, Second term they are enemies.
No. Considering how much the party has fawned over Reagan they’ve told me everything I need to know who they are and what they will forgive and overlook.
No I could no feel any more negatively towards Republicans than I do since they attempted a coup.
Yes, but mostly because Trump’s actions are even more egregious than his first term and blatantly fascist and they are still giving him a pass on it.
That’s a tough one. Those that were honestly conned by a con man I don’t feel any ill will towards. They were lied to. Sure, they could have actually looked into what the gop was saying. But political literacy isn’t everyone’s forte.
Those that should have known better I feel some kinda way towards. Like if you’re a business major you knew better.
Yes but I have a newfound pure, deep disdain for swing voters and nonvoters I didn’t have before.
Maybe. But many of these Trump voters spent the last four years claiming the election was stolen because Trump lost, and plastering their cars and houses with "Fuck Joe Biden" stickers and flags.
Let’s just say they weren’t actively pursuing my friendship.
I mean, no, but only because it’s been at rock bottom since he stepped off the fucking escalator.
I’ve been screaming that this was where we were going from the very beginning, and been called a crazy person for 8 years now. It was fascism then and it is fascism now, Trump is a fascist leader and his supporters are fascist followers. There is no such thing is fascism lite. They will continue to destroy things and hurt people until they are stopped.
No not really. I’m more disappointed in all the liberal voters they stayed home and the Democratic Party for putting forth Harris. Why would I be mad at conservatives for voting for what they want? Maybe liberals will vote in the mid terms.
No, I have considered them oppositional to my civil rights for a long time
I was never in the "agree to disagree" position. I was disgusted enough already going into the first election, and felt that anyone supporting him just did not have the same level of respect or compassion that I did, in general. But I carried on with the people I knew, avoiding political discussion when possible. Things sunk lower going into the 2020 election, because there was SO much anti-Democrat sentiment going on, including from my family. I’d say my opinion was well cemented at that point. The current situation is deeply disappointing but not that surprising or altering when it comes to my opinion of the voters.
Can anyone identify any specific reason that Donald or his ilk would be considered “conservative?”
Not really. What did that was covid where over 1 million Americans died and these pieces of shit carried on like nothing happened. Worse is that they shirked common sense mitigation which as a result prolonged the crisis. We never stared at that in the face. We never grappled with that tragedy. Do people even know how many that is? Here’s an example. This is the biggest football stadium in America.
https://youtu.be/ZS-p-trPKQU
Imagine if every single person there dropped expect you. Every single one and you’re the last witness. That’d be alarming wouldn’t it? Could you walk away from that like nothing happened? Yet that’s what people did during covid. FYI the big house seats 107,000. It’s not even close to the total death toll. That level of depravity to just walk away like nothing happened told me what the right is really about.
So when I saw it go Trump’s way. It was never a shock nor a surprise. It is exactly how the right wing is. It is a party with a firm foundation in cruelty and selfishness. Trump is a symptom of the right wing cancer plaguing our country.
Given how absolutely gleefully conservatives are cheering on the end of rule of law, due process, and the complete obliteration of the first amendment (so long as it’s against "illegals", *wink*) and that they actively defend the most incompetent administration while screaming about "merit" (which always meant "hire more straight white men") and that they worship a couple of coastal billionaires after having ranted about "coastal elites" for like 15 years… yeah my opinion of conservative voters is in the garbage.
Yup. Anyone who sees what is happening and is 100% cool with it is a full blown psychopath as far as I’m concerned.
A dumb, mean man was selected to lead the nation by dumb, mean people. Ours is an evidence-based evaluation of them, not something born of fantasy and emotion: that’s their bailiwick.
Yes. People in the MAGA cult are lacking empathy. Ironically, I grew up going to a protestant church and learned my sense of ethics and values, but now it’s the church-loving right wing that is spreading hate and violates my sense of ethics and values.
After this 2nd Trump election victory, friends and I were discussing the election in a restaurant, and an older uneducated-looking couple near us chimed in to disagree with us and tell us how great Trump will be for bringing back traditional values and helping the economy. My wife, who has 2 masters’ degrees, mentioned a study as evidence to counteract something obviously-false he had said, and the guy didn’t listen, but interrupted and said something like "listen here young lady, give me a day and I can teach you basic economics". It was so ridiculous, since she knows 1000x more than he ever will about science and economics, and he refused to listen. These sorts of people are hateful, disrespectful of women, and unbelievably unintelligent.
The MAGA cult behaves like a bunch of bullies, or barbarians, or mass rioters, or screaming crowds watching gladiators fight to the death. They don’t care about others. I’ve tried empathizing with them, but the problem is that they aren’t thoughtful people; the most charitable explanation is they’ve been brainwashed by their cult, but I think the problem is deeper.
I grew up with religious "friends" but the most high-and-mighty evangelical types among them are the most evil MAGA zealots now. I cut ties with these during COVID after giving up and seeing how they seem beyond all reason (remember when they were all arguing we should intentionally spread Covid, and it was fine if the elderly died as a result? These people wanted to kill their own grandparents.)
In mathematics we have this concept of proof by contradiction; you can set up scenarios to prove a theorem by showing how the opposite leads to a contradiction, a logical impossibility. These MAGA Christians, with their "thou shalt not kill" commandment, are happy about killing with guns, happy about spreading deadly disease to their own parents, happy about letting their own children die of measles. They are pro death even though they claim "thou shalt not kill". Contradiction, proof. These people are internally inconsistent, hypocritical, and evil.
I no longer believe that conservatives are good people. They are all evil. All of them.
>Do you feel like you are being even more negatively polarized towards Trump voters and Republicans in general since Trump won again?
More than what? More than maga? Whatever polarization is happening, it’s less on the left than it is on the right. It’s turmps process. Nothing brings maga together like a common enemy, and turmp knows this, which is exactly why he divides and fear mongers to the gullible rubes on the right.
>I used to think the average conservative voter was a generally decent person who just believed some dumb stuff.
Which was indeed the case before turmp began manipulating them by taking advantage of their propensity to buy into conspiracy theories and fear, based on their tribalism and aversion to evidence based reason and facts.
>But the actions of the recent Trump administration, DOGE’s cuts, and the general response of his supporters has deeply, deeply hurt my opinion of conservatives.
Their gullible and easily manipulated if you appeal to their tribalism. We can thank religion for training them to think this way.
>I often see the sentiment that at the end of the day, we all want the same things. I don’t think that’s true anymore.
Yeah, it’s not true. Moderate theists stay quiet while the wacky Christian nationalists and extremists put tribe ahead of facts and evidence. They put division ahead of unity based on fear mongering phony grievances that they’ve been gas lit into thinking are a war for the culture.
This is who they are, this is who they have always been, cruel, lacking empathy, and uninformed.
Yes.
Honest to god even November 7th 2024, I wasn’t happy but I was like "Ok, let’s see where this goes"
The real point of no return for me was Elon’s Nazi Salute that the right tried to brush off.
Since than it’s gotten worse because if you asked me, when Trump said he could shoot someone on main street and face no backlash, in 2025 he’s right.
Not way more so than last time, but I did feel this way last time. Jan 6th is the only reason I really feel any more as it was so well publicized I can’t forgive people for ignorance and such an obvious authoritarian move I can’t forgive them for looking past it either.
Anyone who voted for Trump is dead to me. Period.
I was just talking to my husband today about this. I want so bad not to be angry at a population who voted for this. I’m not even just talking about the impact of the anti-DEI nonsense that Trump has implemented (which is completely misunderstood and villainized by a bunch of insecure non-minorities). I won’t even go into my thoughts on that… I’m talking about being angry over the fact that they voted in an administration that flies by the edge of their seat at the whims of the American public, while in the meantime we go into a recession, our government employees get laid off in mass quantities and the services we rely on get cut. Massive wait times for services. Food prices increasing because of their policies. They keep having to backtrack because they aren’t thinking through their decisions at all. Complete and total turmoil, and not the good kind that leads to a better life. They’re pretending like it’s an ACTUAL business where you do whatever you can for profit. Just shake things up until something works and then you make money (unless you’re Trump – then you just go bankrupt). The government is not a business. And all of this because of the price of eggs or gas. Or not wanting a trans woman to use a women’s restroom (as if someone is going to go through the trouble of dressing like a woman to assault women or watch them pee). Or not wanting to “waste” their precious tax payer dollars on $10K of student loans for some people. Without even thinking about the fact that, oh hey, more money in their pockets = more money in the economy. The people with the loans are probably the ones contributing more to those taxes anyway. Not all, of course, but a decent bit. Okay now I’m going into an off topic rant.
I do think there’s a difference between “MAGA voters” who will never see anything Trump does as wrong and people who were just… clueless to the actual impact or thought the media were exaggerating. Many of them have regretted their votes. I don’t HATE anyone, but I cannot respect anyone who falls into that first category. I’m angry at that group. I have family who voted for Trump that genuinely believed what he said about the economy without much regard to the other stuff. Single issue voters who didn’t actually research the impacts of his policies. Not bad people. Just didn’t think and actually do research before voting for someone who promised to improve the economy (and not the far right, “do your research” , YouTube version of it). Or they were single issue voters who didn’t support abortion. Everything else was just collateral that didn’t affect them. (Until it did).
I am in a relatively conservative area, and I have already met people or overhead conversations among people regretting voting for Trump. Particularly those who are/were government employees who lost their jobs or knew someone who did. Or people who are stressing about social security benefits. At the VA health clinic I go to, quite a few of them are stressed over cuts. Yet many veterans voted Trump.
In the year of our Lord 2025, if I saw someone with a MAGA hat on, I wouldn’t spit on them if they were on fire. Republicans make me regret that I don’t believe in Hell.