Just joined and, somehow, stumble first into this convo! What a world! I answer as a former Democrat now independent.
The Trump vote was not just from those on the conservative side but those done with Democrats and the progressive wing. note: I voted for a random 3rd party as a protest vote to both major parties.
Personally, due to progressive politics, I'm struggling to find a job. I've been told by former colleagues in those companies: They said "...they won't hire a man "(position seniority was lowered to best-qualified woman-- someone who didn't make final round of candidates for position), "...they won't hire a white man" (position scrapped and combine with another), and -- directly in the interview: "We believe in DEI policies. Why should we hire you?" [again, I'm a white man]
Here are two other scenarios which demonstrate the issue with progressive politics gone wild:
1) last Halloween here in my building, the building manager says: "we won't allow trick-or-treat as it's not inclusive enough." Do I need to explain how ridiculous this is? I really hope not.
2) the women's soccer pro team (new) in Boston was announced last year. They're initial marketing campaign, "...too many balls in sports." (or whatever). The initial response was "that was transphobic." Are you kidding me? A woman's organization starts by making a "joke" about male genitalia and the only (initial) push back was transphobia. Imagine a men's club put out a marketing tag line, "too many [cats] in sports." Both are wrong. It actually took two months before one of the major national or local news services reported it as male-bashing -- which it was. It should be clear too, male owners have had to sell their teams or executives fired for that or less. It's not clear to me anything was required here -- though the team changed their name.
I write these as example of how far the pendulum as swung broadly. I write on two trump-specific issues below:
As for Trump directly, I don't like him or how he goes about things. But he gets credit for forcing NATO members to start seriously talking about their own self-defense and stop using the US as a shield to avoid their own defense spending. Few countries lived up to their 2% of GDP requirement and now he's got a 5% annual agreement (by 2030, I think). Whether they live up to that or not is a different convo. But now, even German Chancellor Merz publicly acknowledged (in a BBC interview) Europe has been free-riding off the US for decades. And it has. There are a whole batch or reasons but include green politics -- but FAR from limited to that -- defense production is VERY non-green.
Or, take Greenland and say you believe in global warming. Russia has claimed the Arctic circle... which includes areas of Greenland. Irrelevant now but not in the future, if you believe in global warming. Denmark is in no position to defend itself from Russia let alone Greenland. Even NATO itself has done nothing. Greenland may have an army of polar bears -- but drones are more effective than they. Isn't it the the responsibility of our President to defend our own rights? In this case, why should we allow another country to close us in on both sides (Bering Strait on the west and Greenland on the east). It's actually negligence (of both Dems and Reps, as well as NATO), and clearly Russia doesn't care about human lives.
I could go on -- on many different topics. But Trump's voters were those who support him and those tired of how crazy the politic left has become.
