So, this was asked in a forum I'm on, and thought I'd discuss it here.
The answer to this comes down to the national environment, Trump's campaign, and the relative ignorance/knowledge of the voters themselves.
In 2016, Trump was a new element. He was a non politician running as a politician. He had a major populist appeal that Hillary didn't. That really flew well up here in the rust belt. While Hillary's campaign was sneering at people wanting change telling us we'd get nothing and like it, Trump talked about "making America great again." What did that mean at the time? Well if I were to give a shot at it, it would be to restore the country and its economy to the former glory of the past Keynesian era. People missed a world in which everyone could have a nice factory job out of high school that could net them a living wage. And Trump touted his business experience as a way to get there. His outsider appeal did that. he could go to voters and say "I'm in business, i know how businesses work, I know how to make jobs, your opponents don't, and that's why you're suffering." That has appeal to people.
I admit, for me, I never liked the guy. I saw his act from a mile away. Because I had the same ideology I do now. I even warned people in my life not to vote for him, and to support, say, Bernie, or Jill Stein, but some did. I could respect it, because they meant well. Trump wasnt an establishment republican politician. He didn't talk like one. He was actually more moderate to some degree and didn't do the psychotic thing Ben Shapiro recently did about cutting social security, no, Trump talked about preserving it. I could tell, at least on economics, he was more moderate.
So why was he treated as an extremist? Well, put simply, wokeism. Hillary weaponized that stuff good, not just against Bernie, and his supporters, who she smeared as those evil sexist privileged Bernie bros who don't get black people or something, and pivoting to the general, he could point to his vile comments on immigration as racist dog whistles and paint his supporters as "deplorable". It didn't have an effect on me because, well, I don't care about wokeism or that aspect of the culture war. I know a lot of Americans, behind closed doors, kind of agree with Trump, or at least aren't turned off by those comments, and I don't care. Hillary kinda turned me off with her stuff, and Trump, well, I can't say I approved of Trump's comments, I wanna make it clear, I think he was a bit of a vile open racist too, but as I've said before, and this is what pisses off the SJWs so bad, it's not like this is like my red line of red lines where you absolutely HAVE to treat that as a top priority. While I'd ideally prefer liberal policy to make that stuff inert where it is a nonissue and voters care about other things, Hillary actively chose to "poke the bear" on the subject so to speak and helped polarize people over culture wars themselves. You see, that's the problem with hillary. When you have nothing else going for you but shaming others for not being pure on social justice issues, you're not gonna be very popular, or well liked. Even if you're technically on the right side of the issue.
Now, again, I didn't like Trump. I'd never vote for someone like him. I thought he was an idiot, and I honestly thought if he got into power that he would either moderate like in that article, or be such a horrible president people would go back to the democrats in drove and say "never again". Sometimes people need to touch the stove once and say "ow, fire is hot" to learn not to do it again. It's part of being human and learning from mistakes. But that's the thing. Trump had major populist appeal, but even I could tell he wasn't gonna be a good president. I thought people would get 4 years from this guy, go "well, that's a mistake" and move on with life. When he won in 2016, I thought it was a fluke. I thought he just managed to piss off enough people that he managed to win states that generally trend blue, and that in future elections the trend would reverse themselves.
As such, with 2016, I was willing to let bygones be bygones. if you voted for him, fine, you make a mistake. I get it. He had populist appeal, hillary was a turd, some aspects of his message might have resonated. Learn from your mistakes and move on.
But...for some reason, people actually LIKE that orange ###hole. I don't get it. Like, my dad voted Trump in 2016, and he was like "yeah, and then I saw him a few months later pushing world leaders out of the way to get to the cameras at some sort of summit and was like "wtf?" Like, he thought Trump's populist appeal was just that, appeal. Like he's an actor, he was acting. He would actually be a fairly competent president. But then he started acting like the psycho we know and hate, and it was like...oh god, mistakes were made, weren't they? And my dad recognized he made a mistake and has been anti Trump since.
2020 was an election where we know what we got. We knew that Trump wasn't great. His ride or die supporters credit the continuation of the obama economy on him, sure. But let's face it, the president doesn't have much to do with economic prosperity, and gets credited too much, whether for the better or for worse. Trump didn't implement a single policy I can think of that can be credited with a good economy, rather, he just happened to inherit it and rode that wave for all it was worth. And even by 2020, the bubble burst and the party was over. And people seemed to just gloss over his incompetence or even cheer it on.
The fact is, if you were still supporting the guy in 2020, I had to seriously question your conception of reality. Because he wasn't a sane guy. He was kinda psycho. He was all over the place on foreign policy. On economic policy we just got trickle down with populist optics. On social policy he was working with rightoids and passing all of the stuff the GOP had wanted for years now. He was a standard republican politician with a serious temperament problem. I didn't see him as a threat to democracy yet, although i did notice him being brutal on the BLM protesters and kissing up to dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Honestly, if you liked this guy, let's face it, you are a rightoid. You werent an independent voter who kinda got sucked into his cult of personality and made a genuine mistake like some friends and family members did. You actually LIKED the guy. And that's what scared me as 2020's election results came in. I figured Biden was down because like Hillary, he lacked populiarity. but both Trump and Biden had off the charts levels of support. And that scared me that like 70+ million people can vote for that psycho. 60 million, well, theres probably 60 million people who are so ride or die on conservatism they'd vote for anyone with an R, and of course, we had all the people with their flags and hats and all.
And then January 6th happened. And at that point, it's all fun and games until someone incites an insurrection to overturn electoral results. I wasnt sure how much to blame Trump at first, but after more facts came out, I turned hard on him and started seeing him as a literal threat to democracy. As such, if you STILL support the guy, you're a fricking idiot, or an authoritarian psycho. That's just how I see it.
In 2016, okay, you made a mistake, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. If you voted for him in 2020, yeah, you really are either a ride or die republican or an idiot or both. If you plan on voting for him in 2024, you're a lost cause. You're literally playing with fire. Trump 2024 isn't even remotely the same vibe as his first term. he's much darker, much more authoritarian, and playing with some serious fascist fire with his rhetoric. Jon Stewart skewered him this week, and I advise everyone watch it. Seriously, Stewart is right, trump is a psycho, and you need to know what you're supporting. This isn't fun and games any more. This guy is basically American hitler, and that's not an exaggeration. Janaury 6th was the beer hall putsch. And right now, much like the 1932 election that put hitler in power, the left isn't showing a united front against this guy but instead complaining about fricking gaza. if I can put UBI on hold for an election cycle to get rid of this psycho, you can stfu about gaza, that's all I gotta say there.
DO NOT VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP IN 2024!
I'm serious. DONT. Doing so could literally end our democracy. This ain't fun and games any more. If you voted trump in 2016, you can be forgiven. In 2020, you were an idiot. In 2024, you're a dangerous idiot. And that's why 2016 supporters get a pass, but 2020 and 2024 ones don't.
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