Changed Your Mind About Trump? Thank You. Welcome.

Editorial by Troy Torres, Kandit News & Views

Buyer’s remorse has been growing the past several days from more Americans who voted for President Trump just three months ago. Tale after tale – from farmers who are on the brink of losing their livelihoods, to federal workers abruptly terminated, to husbands whose wives have been deported, to Arab Americans in disbelief about the return of American aggression and imperialism over the Gaza Strip – more and more Americans are regretting their support of Mr. Trump. That includes Guamanians and Northern Mariana Islanders who are alarmed at what the Forty-Seventh President has been doing since assuming office for the second time on January 20.

Some of our brethren – mostly those who work for the federal government or who work for places funded by grants that have been halted or altogether abolished – are among the early victims of the Trump regime.

The regret isn’t anecdotal; it’s measured. According to the aggregate of national public opinion polling, Mr. Trump’s approval rating just two weeks ago was at a high of 53 percent. Thirteen hours ago, according to Newsweek’s aggregation, it had fallen to 46.6 percent. What is far more telling is that his disapproval numbers have been climbing since he came to office, and now sits at 48 percent on polling aggregate.

There are some MAGA fans for whom it will be close to impossible to change their minds about their leader.  Anthropologists and psychologists have argued that it matters not what logic a reasonable and objective person brings to a discussion about Mr. Trump. You can prove to them that a white piece of paper is the color white, but if Trump says it is yellow, then to them, the truth is that the paper is yellow.

The genie is out of the bottle, unfortunately. A vast number of our fellow Americans will never be able to free themselves from the dearth of ultra right wing, neofascist propaganda that has led them to believe that information sources like The New York Times – the global standard of journalism – are destroying democracy. Democracy is being upended before their eyes, and either they don’t see it, or they are so entrenched in this MAGA cult that they are willing to trade their lifetime of citizenship valuing freedom in favor of the autocracy and fascism taking hold today.

Fortunately, some who subscribed to all that are waking up. Unfortunately for some of them, it is because they became victims of the new regime.

My added fear is that some of us who campaign against this regime will not actively welcome and embrace the former MAGA citizens. I see it happening. Americans who voted for Trump and changed their minds and are speaking out are being laughed at by the left and the otherwise anti-MAGA crowd. They are being scorned, unforgiven for their vote that led to the election of Donald Trump.

That’s exactly how we, the resistance, will lose this fight.

I’m guilty of it, too. I have watched many of these testimonies and thought to myself, “You idiot. That’s what you get!”

But when you really think about it, these men and women aren’t idiots at all. They were sold a bag of tricks from a populist cult movement, and they had the tenacity to wake up from their slumber and the courage to say something about it.

We need to welcome them, embrace them. We need to talk to them so they can better understand where we were coming from and, more importantly, so we can understand why they liked Trump in the first place. How can we convince more people like them to relinquish their ideological chains? To become vocal for what is right? To get away from the propaganda and learn to trust reputable news sources again? To unlearn toxic cult behavior?

We need to let them know that ours is a big, tolerant umbrella that includes everyone from the far left to those who subscribed to what the Republican Party used to stand for. What we won’t tolerate – what we must fight together – is fascism and nationalism that trades fundamental human rights for ideological vortex into autocracy.

The more we welcome and embrace those who wake up from the cult nightmare, the faster we can rebuild all that has been destroyed in less than one month.