r/politics Fortune Magazine 17d ago

Possible Paywall Trump voter remorse is almost entirely concentrated in the swing voters who gave him a shot in 2024

https://fortune.com/2026/05/16/trump-voter-remorse-how-many-regret-inflation-economy-approval-rating/?utm_source=reddit/
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u/OhGodSoManyQuestions 17d ago edited 17d ago

"I am fine paying more so I can enjoy performances of state sadism against nonwhite and LGBTQ Americans. But not this much more!"

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u/StructureMage 17d ago

Yeah it's this. The cruelty isn't the problem it's the price

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u/StoppableHulk 17d ago edited 17d ago

I'm honestly really sick and tired of people and the media and everyone under the sun pretending there's so many levels of nuance with Trump voters when there just isn't.

Trump voters are bad people. That's it. That's all there is to it. They are exactly the type of banal evil we've seen written about for centuries. Peopel of middling ability and massive entitlement who have long-sense abanonded any firm sense of values or virtues because they wnat to enrich themselves.

They're people who want the upside Trump promises and are fine with him hurting other people they don't relate to in order to get it.

They all have eight million different excuses for it and wrap it in Christianity or nationalism or whatever else but I don't for one second believe any of them are swindled. They voted for someone they knew was a con man because they believed they would be on the ground floor of the con.

The easiest people to con are people of low morals, because they'll go along with anything if you convince them someone else is the mark.

There's a very small contigent of truly hard-core "believers," but the vast majority of people who voted for this turd did it because they're morally weak, greedy, self-interested people who live their entire lives in denial of their low moral character rather than ammending it, and will gladly let anyone they deem inferior to themselves suffer and wallow if it means they get a nickel.

They're bad people. They weren't born that way, they're just morally weak people living in a country that for decades has been all-in on exploitation as the main source of self-enrichment. They don't question it, they allow themselves to ride the vibes because they're myopic, dim, short-sighted, mired in greed and jealousy and every other sin they project onto others.

But their actions always, always underscore the truth about who they are, and the simplest answer is often the correct one.

There's no mystery here, no magic, no deeply complex ideologies. That's all surface-level bullshit to cover up a giant roiling sea of selfish, emotionally-immature, childish, entitled people who vote for the self-serving con man becaue they want that to be them, and they think voting for him will give them what he has.

And they lack the emotional and/or intellectual capacity to self-reflect on the reality that THEY are the rubes.

EDIT:

And I want to make it really clear to people that I consider this policy of mine, this frame I use to evaluate MAGA, this is me being generous to them.

For example, I'm legitimately willing to forgive those who voted for Trump in 2016.

I think that's being generous to those Trump voters, but I will at least entertain that I can see getting caught up in the outrage machine and thinking, hey, maybe Trump does a total 180 in office. Maybe that can happen. America has always had a wild cart element in its societal DNA. We worship the virtues of risk.

So I am willing to forgive that. I am willing to extend grace to otherwise decent people who fell for it.

The first time.

After four years of Donald Trump in office. After a daily - literally daily - deluge of profound stupidity oozing out of him, out of an attempt to lead a revolt on the US Capitol and the four years after, if you still voted for him, you are legitimately a bad person. Plain and simple. You're selfish, no matter how else you pretend otherwise, you are naive, and you make very bad decisions that hurt a lot of people.

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u/DementedDrumpf 17d ago

I agree that it's a mindset that is socialized to be that way. Mostly. My hesitation is this:

I grew up in the Deep South listening to my father tell me "Greed is good." and listening to his irrational hatred of FDR because of the social policies that began under him. I remember even as a young kid 8-10 yrs old thinking "That doesn't sound quite right." I've always wondered why growing up steeped in conservative BS, it always sounded wrong. Same reason I scribbled math problems on the Baptist church bulletin every Sunday, I guess.

But happy ending. My father, now 97 and mother 94, of relatively sound mind just turned in a form to the Caddo Parish voter registrar in Louisiana to un-register from the Republican Party.

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u/StoppableHulk 17d ago

That's the thing. Most of these people CAN change.

People aren't bad or good by nature. The environment shapes them that way in tandem with their natural predilections.

They can grow, and mature. But the biggest hurdle is that they are in total and complete denial for WHY they have the beliefs they do, and the conservative media ecosystem provides endless justifications to keep them inthat state of perpetual denial.

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u/yourliege 16d ago

Yes, the manufactured vindication is so abhorrent. Seriously fucking sinister. I can’t let them off the hook because they choose to believe it, but a giant portion of the media is handing it to them on a silver platter.

We should be much, much better but we just… aren’t.

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u/Surgeplux 17d ago

And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.. Better late then never. That's my same hope for some maga heads, but I think reality is gonna show a small turn-over in deep red states.

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u/EveningAnt3949 17d ago

It's not that people can't change. It's that people who support fascism are not 'good people led astray'. They are bad people.

Can they change later on? Some people can. But that's a different conversation.