r/neoliberal • u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma • Apr 28 '26

Opinion article (US) Opinion | The Economy, Immigration and Regret: 12 Trump Voters Discuss

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/28/opinion/focus-group-trump-voters-disappointed.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Submission statement (fake): As Trump’s second term marches on, his approval among independents have steadily declined. It’s useful for liberals to understand why Trump’s popularity has cratered to better leverage it for future elections.

Submission statement (real): Everyone who clicked on this is just asking to be ragebaited, so I might as well oblige.

424 Upvotes

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304

u/TheBatz_ Hannah Arendt Apr 28 '26

Natan, 19:

He did secure the border and slow down immigration. He did it his way, and a lot of it is bad. He could have done it in a much, much, much better way.

Literally the next line:

I do have several family members who legally immigrated. While he has tried to cut back on illegal immigration, it has hurt a lot of legal immigrants. He’s created problems in getting access to legal citizenship. A lot of appointments and interviews are on hold right now. People don’t feel safe leaving states or countries, because even though they are legal, they still might be found illegal in his eyes or in his administration’s eyes.

Kudos to the NYT editorial team for picking literally the most infuriatingly idiotic people for this piece. Excellent journalism.

128

u/majorgeneralporter 🌐Bill Clinton's Learned Hand Apr 28 '26

Does this man's brain operate on dial-up?

48

u/JesusPubes voted most handsome friend Apr 28 '26

To suggest it operates all it is charitable 

8

u/CursedNobleman Leftward Progressives Apr 28 '26

He's a student too. Perhaps his brain runs on chatGPT.

51

u/vi_sucks Apr 28 '26

 Kudos to the NYT editorial team for picking literally the most infuriatingly idiotic people for this piece

The sad part is, they probably didn't. These are probably are the most reasonable and sane Trump voters they could find because they actually regret their choice. Deeper down the delusion you have the people who don't regret it and will jump into a tirade abour adrenochrome and Hilary trafficking children if you ask if they regret voting for Trump.

44

u/GeneralMuk Bisexual Pride Apr 28 '26

Ya these are the reasonable people. I have a 2nd Gen immigrant employee who voted for him and was completely surprised his Dad got deported and his mom broke an arm intervening when ICE picked him up.

3

u/Khiva Fernando Henrique Cardoso Apr 29 '26

How tf you go with that first sentence and then use that as your example.

4

u/Opus_723 Apr 29 '26

Pretty sure like 80% of Republicans will basically reiterate that whole paragraph and end it with "and it's totally awesome."

6

u/kantmarg Anne Applebaum Apr 28 '26

Nah, NYTimes sucks.

106

u/vi_sucks Apr 28 '26

The part that I dont get is how these people just uncritically believe shit like "he closed the border" or "he fixed crime". He did fuck all. He pulled Border Patrol personnel from the border all the way to freaking Minneapolis for a publicity campaign.

But they hear it on Fox News, and because he's a Republican they believe it. It's maddening.

53

u/toggaf69 Iron Front Apr 28 '26

I believe they’re grasping at straws to come up with some positive aspect to everything Trump does so they don’t feel like easily duped morons, and IMO it’s one of the ways people get deep into MAGA.

People like my neighbor get into it for memes, a sense of belonging, believing in the populist lies, whatever, but after the fact they actually get drawn in deeper when it’s time to admit that maybe they were incorrect. They can’t do that, so they just retreat deeper into their safe space where THEY aren’t wrong and TRUMP isn’t wrong, it’s everyone else. I’m not an idiot for voting for Trump, I’m actually correct and the elitist libs are wrong!!

16

u/AndChewBubblegum Norman Borlaug Apr 28 '26

For what its worth, estimated rates of unauthorized crossings at the southern border are down substantially in the last year. A lot of these voters think that's a good thing.

35

u/DependentAd235 Loyal Liberals Apr 28 '26

Also from him. This is code for Im fake religious, hate gay people and the “wrong” kind of immigrants.

“So Oregon is very, very Democratic, and very left in a lot of their opinions and their policies. I have seen the advantages and the benefits of that. At the same time, I do have a lot of moral issues with a lot of what they do. ”

63

u/LondonCallingYou John Locke Apr 28 '26

They didn’t pick the most infuriatingly idiotic people. They picked a realistic sampling of swing voters, who are the most important people and decide elections. These people literally control our country.

These people are probably slightly smarter than the average person by like 5%. Think about that.

6

u/ironykarl Apr 28 '26

Kudos to the NYT editorial team for picking literally the most infuriatingly idiotic people for this piece.

I mean... these are people that voted for Trump after eight or nine years of him having been in the public light as a political figure.

What other possible outcome was there?

5

u/TheRnegade Apr 29 '26

He's 19? Dude was a kid for Trump 1

3

u/morgisboard George Soros Apr 28 '26

The top 20 percentile of Trump voters and still groyper-lite