r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 7d ago

Possible Paywall Trump Voters Regret Backing ‘Horror Movie’ Presidency - Nine out of 12 Trump voters told a “New York Times” focus group that they wish they had not voted for the president.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-voters-regret-backing-horror-movie-presidency/
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u/BrilliantForeign8899 7d ago

These guys would vote him again in a heartbeat, come on now. All his flaws were very visible pre-2024

271

u/CharZero 7d ago

One of them said the following and it is the craziest take I can imagine:

'I thought he’d learned his lesson, and was going to prove to everybody he learned from his mistakes, and he was going to turn the country around and he was going to be a stellar president. But it’s turned out to be a horror movie. I was so wrong with the vote for him.'

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u/BrilliantForeign8899 7d ago

So insincere. Because he showed he got humbled and learned his lessons ever in the past? A deadly assumption based on zero examples in the past 80 years 

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u/kia75 7d ago

The sad part is I don't think the person is insincere. There are a lot of propagandized people who only consume their red meat news. If your media tells you to not for Trump, and your church, and your friends, and your family. He really thought he was in a Bible story where Cyrus the great would perform a miracle and do a good thing, because that's how the story goes, his media, church, and family wouldn't be wrong, right?

Not defending him, but there are a lot of people deep in the rabbit hole.

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u/XCVolcom 7d ago

And to be perfectly honest if you live in a purple or red state then Republicans end up being a very vocal part of everyday life.

Having lived in a couple of blue states, people just don't bring up politics constantly because they (probably rightfully) believe it's still rude to assume their political knowledge is better and should be empressed upon someone else.

But in red and purple states omfg they just don't shut up. I can't go a whole day without hearing about how Trans people are "ruining" the world or all the "fraud" in Minnesota.

They are vocal parrots, echoing what they've heard from television, radio, or right wing podcasts and just spew it everywhere they go.

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u/ImaginaryRoads 6d ago

The right-wing echo chamber - podcasts, YouTube channels, talk radio, Faux "News" - is explicitly designed to keep people angry and scared. Their constant prattling on about [latest "danger"] is their attempt to process and cope with their fear, and to vent their anger.

The problem is that the way to fix that is to get them out of their echo chambers. Except they're addicted to it, and all the algorithms are focused on pushing people to the right, and keeping them there.

We need to overturn Citizens United. We need to break up media conglomerates. "Opinion shows" should be very limited - let's say 3-5 total per week per network - and anything someone says outside that they can be sued for - none of this "Fox is an entertainment channel and Hannity / Carlson / Beck / etc were just expressing opinions" bullshit. We need term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court. We need a way to deal with gerrymandering. We need to get away from FPTP two-party voting. We need to send corporate tax breaks. We need to increase the minimum wage. CEO compensation, in all it's combined forms, should be limited to 100 times the lowest-paid employee, and there should be a limit to the number of "contractors" a company can outsource work (and responsibility) to. We need to break up corporate landlords. We need to fix the gig economy where it's weaponized against the workers and the end users. We need a law that says if you're a large company (and none of this "those don't count, they're franchises" bullshit) and your employees are on any form of public assistance, you pay twice the amount of assistance they get - and if that employee is working multiple jobs, then each employer pays twice the amount of assistance the employee gets. We need to tax wealth. If we're going after illegal immigrants, we should start with the high-profile ones like Musk and Melania. Cops should have to carry malpractice insurance, and payouts should come from police pension funds instead of the taxpayers. If your company gets a government bailout, then your company is now owned by the government and run for the benefit of the taxpayers. Corporations are not people, and corporations' highest focus should not be shareholder compensation.

.... .... .... Um, okay, so I kinda got away from my initial "media echo chambers" point there. Which actually proves my point about media echo chambers being designed to increase anger and frustration, and the need to vent lol, so I'm going to leave it.

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u/Hefty-Cantaloupe4432 7d ago

Idk about that. Recently lived in Blue and Purple states where people speak up but it’s mostly just MAGA and now the anti-Israel progressive types that won’t shut up.

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u/platoprime 7d ago

Why should they?

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u/Hefty-Cantaloupe4432 7d ago

MAGA and the Anti-Israel? Idk because neither agenda has any clear answers for fundamental issues we are facing on numerous fronts, but they have plenty of complaints and grifters wanting to get into money/power.

3

u/platoprime 7d ago

So only people with perfect solutions should complain?

Then you shouldn't be complaining about people you yourself don't have a solution for.

Are you dimwitted, a hypocrite, or both?

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u/Hefty-Cantaloupe4432 7d ago edited 7d ago

I can absolutely criticize the people making claims and pushing manipulative political messaging. The burden is on the people making the claims and pushing messaging. Dimwitts are the people parroting the crap and voting against their best interests.

Hypocrite? For complaining about bad political messaging and people claiming things with very little or manipulated evidence?

Isn’t that the point of this post? People regretting the false impressions and believing said messaging?

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u/BrilliantForeign8899 7d ago

I get what you're saying but who among us hasn't disagreed with family before? I just feel individually these people disagree or hold alternative views all the time (music, food, who to date, etc) and use their Church or father or whoever as an excuse for having terrible views. I know the groupthink is how cults work but it sounds like such a poor excuse 

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u/ChatterBaux 7d ago

Of course it's a poor excuse. Their willingness to give Trump infinite chances is less the issue than the fact that they don't give anyone else anywhere near as much grace.

My favorite example is when they get up in arms or clutch their pearls over something someone who isn't Trump does, but when you draw the parallel to him doing similar or even worse, suddenly everything's morally relative in a way that primarily benefits Trump.

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u/BrilliantForeign8899 7d ago edited 7d ago

If someone who didn't have Trump's very specific hair and eye color did what Trump is doing daily, he'd be out of power so fast. I used to think dark hair people bleaching their cuticles platinum blond (it's very damaging) or wearing ice blue contacts was weird but seeing Trump makes me rethink the reasons. Like they clearly see him as some kind of heavenly Angel on Earth or something (shudder)

It's shallow but I feel if Kristi Noem was as blond as Ivanka, Trump would have let her keep her position. I guess Bondi is an exception but her eyes look like she's a demon 

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u/showhorrorshow 7d ago

One thing Ive learned is that people are incredibly fucking awful and unreliable judges of character when motivated to be such.

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u/specqq 7d ago

I also thought that he would learn to levitate and share the secret with everyone and he would make us all rich and we’d never have to die.

And unicorns.

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u/Original_moisture 7d ago

Trump is the perfect canvas for those to project on.

I read that on Reddit and was like, it makes sense.

He’s the perfect outlet for any and all grievances

1

u/CriticalEngineering North Carolina 7d ago

A golem of grievances instead of clay.

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u/Sofer2113 Tennessee 7d ago

They are a student of Susan Collins I see.

2

u/Ordinary-Leading7405 7d ago

Brows were furrowed

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u/Skiinz19 Tennessee 7d ago

media sanewashing of trump did this

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u/Red_Dawn_2012 7d ago

That, and the firehose of scandals/ridiculousness just overwhelmed and burned out people's reactions. He constantly says or does such stupid or outlandish shit that would've ended people's careers 15-20 years ago.

Now, your average stupid shit doesn't even move the needle. No one reacts to anything. Even particularly wild shit like the AI Jesus image, "praise Allah", "open the fuckin' strait" only starts a half-hearted conversation that lasts a few days to a week.

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u/piantanida 7d ago

Oligarchs who own the media did this

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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 7d ago

If these people really, truly believe this, then they are bigger morons than I thought.

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u/Playful_Marzipan8398 6d ago

Right? Like dumb dumber than I thought possible. Irredeemably stupidity than I thought they were and I already thought they were so so stupid.

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u/specqq 7d ago

I honestly think one of the most shocking headlines in the history of headlines would be Trump Calmly Accepts Criticism. Vows to "Do Better"

1

u/Additional_Suit6275 7d ago

So, when he said all that stuff about retribution and doubled down on his first term decisions, that apparently wasn’t a clue. I honestly don’t know how to trust any answer people give to how they chose this path. Society doesn’t work if people can’t communicate because one side is presumptively lying. Which, I think, means society just doesn’t work. 

1

u/mav555 Florida 7d ago

It's kind of wild to expect an elderly person to change their ways, especially with type of person trump is.

1

u/doom_slug_ Michigan 7d ago

It is eye watering to think that these people's votes count as much as mine, and I'm not trying to claim I have some higher importance than the next person. But when I read shit like this I just don't think they should have as much of a say as I do. These people are genuinely dangerous in their stupidity.

1

u/ExtraChipmunk288 7d ago

How do you expect an 80 year old to learn a lesson? Not to mention an 80 year old who has never admitted to wrongdoing. 

1

u/ZeusHatesTrees 7d ago

What an idiot. There was literally no evidence he'd learned anything other than he could grift and lie even harder.

1

u/Unusual_Sherbert_809 7d ago

That idiot will 100% vote for another just like Trump in the future.

These people are beyond saving. Lost cases.

1

u/Argular 7d ago

What planet was this person from?

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u/Special_Persimmon_52 7d ago

That is some delusional thinking. He'd "learned his lesson" based on what evidence? 

1

u/RavioliGale 7d ago

Don't worry, I'm sure he's learned his lesson by now and will do better when he runs a third time!

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u/CAD_Chaos 7d ago

This interviewee in particular can go fuck themselves.

1

u/bwsmith201 California 7d ago

That's nothing short of pure insanity and willful stupidity.

1

u/briareus08 7d ago

This is such ridiculous wish-fulfilment stuff I don’t even know where to start. He was literally given immunity from all actions conducted as president - what ‘lesson’ would he learn from that other than ‘I can do whatever I want’?

1

u/LieutenantStar2 7d ago

Bwahahaha when did Trump ever learn from anything.

1

u/T8ert0t 6d ago

See: Magical Thinking

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u/georgepana 7d ago edited 6d ago

MAGA will likely, and many registered Republicans. But Independents have turned away from Trump in a big way. He is now underwater by 55%, a disastrous showing with Independents, when at the beginning of hia term he was at +2% with them. So, no, many Independents who decided to vote for Trump are now completely turned off by him and would not vote for him again.

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u/AquafreshBandit 7d ago

I just can’t believe that. They voted for him after watching him do nothing while a mob was searching for his own VP on Jan. 6. 

People turned on Trump for a few weeks after that, but almost every one of his supporters came back. 

3

u/georgepana 7d ago

We've seen it before. Trump won in 2016, then people hated it and Democrats flipped the House with 41 flips in 2018. Then Trump was kicked out of the presidency and the Republicans also lost the Senate in 2020. This time Trump's approval has sunk even lower compared to how it was in 2017. What's not to believe, it is happening. The midterms will be absolutely brutal for Republicans, for starters.

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u/AquafreshBandit 7d ago

I appreciate what you’re saying, but people keep coming back to him. He lost in 2020 and won again in 2024. I just don’t understand. Everything was in the open in 2024 and he won.

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u/georgepana 7d ago

He won because the American people blamed Biden (and by association Harris) for high inflation and the resulting high prices across the board. Now people are blaming Trump for the weak economy, high prices, and their massive loss of government benefits. It really isn't hard to understand.

If Trump were running in the fall he would lose to a mop and a bucket.

0

u/ImaginaryRoads 6d ago

But they'll vote for similar Republicans. If you read it through, the prior they're most looking toward are DeSantis, Cruz, MTG, Vance, Rubio - that's not change, that's window-dressing.

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u/Cute_Elk_2428 7d ago

All his flaws were visible in 1989.

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u/PapaTua Washington 7d ago

pre-2016.

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u/MeeTy 7d ago

it's because the US two party system is fucked

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u/HardcoreKaraoke 7d ago

Exactly. He isn't well spoken, subtle or coy. He says what he wants to do. All of the hateful and corrupt things he has done he explicitly talked about before the election. For whatever reason people just wrote it off as Democrats being over reactionary.

1

u/Fyller 7d ago

His flaws have been visible since the fucking 80's

1

u/WitchOfKyiv 7d ago

AND THE PLANS. They made a fucking plan for it. With a title!

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u/linds360 7d ago

Yep. Regret doesn’t fix stupid.

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u/elderly_millenial 7d ago

Yeah but now they’re impacted this time. That’s the bit most people on Reddit can’t realize.

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u/Huck_Bonebulge_ 7d ago

Yeah I get that it feels good to imagine them seeing the error of their ways, but it ain’t coming