Mollie Shiflett ’26 is a double major in history and linguistics, not that she knows what to do with that. She plays on Women’s Club Soccer Gold for the College of William and Mary and is an avid fan of most sports — except golf. Email Mollie at mrshiflett@wm.edu.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
I knew I was going to end up writing this at some point. I had hoped that it wouldn’t have been this soon, but I kind of had a feeling I wouldn’t have to. It’s been a little over a month since the inauguration, and amongst the barrage of WTF moments — all of his cabinet nominations, etc. — there seems to be some kind of buyer’s remorse among those who voted for him. I guess they didn’t want to read the fine print he was shouting in their faces. When it comes to Donald Trump, you get what you pay for, and some of his supporters should have double checked that price tag.
These issues do not just apply to one sect of Trump’s voting base. In an article in the Washington Post, Venezuelan immigrants living in Miami who supported Trump because — at least in part — they believed that he would help ensure that Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro was removed from power (which of course hasn’t happened). And now Trump is moving forward with plans to remove the temporary protective status that has kept these Venezuelans in the country. For them to place their trust in a president so deeply anti-immigration, whose racist rhetoric is frequently on display, is baffling to me.
But there’s also the school teachers who voted for Trump in Bell County, Ky., a poor county that relies on federal funding from the Department of Education to subsidize the costs of things like pay for teachers, etc. According to a CNN piece, the 15 states that most rely on federal funding for their schools all voted for Trump. But again, his policies on education have been well known, and they carry on from what he did in his first term, according to a piece in EdWeek. They focus on deep spending cuts to the Department of Education, and on the campaign trail, he even called for it to be dismantled. Did no one who voted for him see this coming?
It also affects those that didn’t vote for him, but chose not to vote at all. In Michigan, according to a CBS article, specifically in Dearborn, one of the highest per capita Muslim populations, Trump won 43% of the Arab-American vote, and Kamala Harris won 37%. A few of the Arab-Americans interviewed said that their decisions were not a vote for Trump, but rather a vote against Kamala Harris and her perceived role as the heir to Joe Biden’s policies and beliefs when it comes to Israel. The Biden viewpoint on Israel, and especially on continuing to support or deal with Benjamin Netanyahu, was certainly one of, if not the most, deeply concerning aspects of the former president’s policies, but I find it hard to believe that — by this protest or any other like it — any group that chose to not vote for the Democratic Party over Trump is getting a better deal than they would have had under a Democratic presidency. And yes, Trump’s plan to develop Gaza seems impossible and generally ridiculous. But there was also a point where Elon Musk being involved in government at all seemed ridiculous, just like it seemed ridiculous that anyone would put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of anything related to health, but here we are.
This is not to say that those who voted for Trump — or chose to vote third party — didn’t have a good reason to vote the way they did (at least in their minds). It makes sense that those who are the poorest and have felt inflation hit the hardest would be looking for any kind of solution, or that voters believed he was more likely to end the war in Gaza (and the ceasefire is there, but tenuous at best), or whatever else they thought, they all seem to have forgotten one small but not insignificant detail: with Donald Trump, anything is possible, and whatever that “anything” is, it normally isn’t good. You get what you pay for, and he made no bones about what you would be getting: a loud, crude, racist rapist who couldn’t care less about what he does and who it hurts or helps, as long as he can come out looking like the winner. So congratulations, we now have to watch piece by piece as he does his level best to undermine and dismantle every form of American democracy he can. He will demean women and limit their rights, and continue to attack those populations who are the most vulnerable. I just don’t understand how the people who voted for him — who are suddenly worried about what he’s doing — didn’t spend even a little bit of time to look at the not insubstantial pile of evidence he’s left us of his character and how he handles power, or even just what he’s said.
He will make it us against them until we don’t know who they are anymore and we don’t know who we are anymore. And the worst thing about it is, no matter how much he continues to screw over his base, they will never believe he had anything to do with it. It will always be someone else’s fault. It’s a long road ahead and I hope we’re all still standing at the end of it.
