Salon: We should welcome MAGA remorse: I should know -- it saved me

[Dennis Donovan]

Salon - (archived: https://archive.ph/LyFk3 ) We should welcome MAGA remorse: I should know — it saved me

Many Trump voters have doubts. There will be a gradual, and then sudden, awakening. We must be ready to help

By Rich Logis
Contributing Writer
Published May 11, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)

It’s seemingly a daily occurrence to see testimonials from people who voted for Donald Trump but are now ready to renounce MAGA. This buyer’s remorse is just beginning, and we need to provide an off-ramp for the increasingly uncertain.

None of this should be surprising. It’s just a fact about our species: Many people only care about something when it affects them personally.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but let’s start with Trump’s attempts to deport immigrants in blatant defiance of the Constitution, without affording them their guaranteed right to due process. To some degree, these have been rebuffed.

Elon Musk’s DOGE has broken so much of what didn’t need fixing, resulting in layoffs of thousands of federal workers who thought they’d be spared. Musk has literally embodied inefficiency and we can now, once and for all, retire the romantic mythology that any accomplished businessperson will succeed in managing the $7 trillion budget of the U.S. government. Our country is not a for-profit entity and cannot be treated as one, because it is responsible for the welfare of a third of a billion people.

Fire and then aim (without ever being ready) is no way to run this government, or any other.

/snip

[Luvcatz14]

1. Mixed feelings about this

Voting for him in 2016 was awful, but in this last election—you knew. You knew about the hate and the cruelty and the derangement. You just wanted it to happen to others and not yourself. And you couldn’t bring yourself to vote for an amazingly competent woman. So what does that say about you?

[Skittles]

4. THANK YOU

THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE GETTING

[Callie1979]

2. As I've said before, these are the people who win elections. Talk to them.

Ask them WHY they chose him. Find out the REASONS people who aren't MAGAts voted for him Trump's "base" isnt big enough to win an election.
Too many people are convinced "it was stolen" instead of finding out the failures.

[Skittles]

3. THEY are the FAILURES

they utterly DISGRACED themselves and their country

[Callie1979]

5. Sure they did. And we lost. We better find out WHY or we'll lose again.

Continuing to just call them names isnt going to win over a single vote.
My God I'm reading these posts every day & its like we haven't learned a damn thing. The election was in NOVEMBER and still we jus point blame instead of finding out the real reasons.

[Skittles]

6. I think we should concentrate on those who did not vote

FUCK Trump voters

[Callie1979]

7. THIS too. 1/3 of eligible voters didnt vote in '24 or '20. WHY.

I mean, you didnt think it was important enough THIS time?
I'm afraid a lot of those people are simply people who never watch the news, read any news, pay zero attention to the world, etc. They focus on their lives & where's the next party & can I find a guy/woman this weekend & which game should I bet on this weekend. They probably aren't even registered. And of the people I know who fit this description I'm afraid if you DID get them involved they'd fall for trump-type bullshit

[Aristus]

8. I agree.

I hate non-voters less than I hate Trumpsters who vote.

The non-voters may not have had the brains to vote for Kamala Harris. But at least they had the decency and self-respect not to vote for Trump. Concentrate on the non-voters. Don't waste time on those ambulatory wastes of defective human protoplasm that voted for Trump.