Cautiously Pessimistic About Trump 2.0

I’d rather be wrong than stay wrong. I thought Kamala Harris would be better for America than Donald Trump, but many people disagreed. I’m curious to see if this new Trump administration will win me over.

Less government waste? Healthier food? Better immigration system? More economic opportunities for the working class? Resolution of wars abroad? I am all the way here for it. 

My big question is, Is that really what Trump supporters care about?

Living in Midland, Texas, I’ve been privy to pro-Trump locker room talk for ten years now. All that listening has given me a glimpse into what really motivates Trump supporters—at least the ones in this corner of the country.

More than any specific policy position, here are the most accurate predictors of whether someone supports the MAGA movement:

1) A deathly aversion to paying taxes. 

2) A proclivity for a “tough love” mentality; a dislike of anything that feels “soft.”

3) Fear that white, Christian families with traditional gender roles are losing dominance.

I don’t relate to any of those attitudes. I just don’t. Maybe it’s because my dad used to bring hitchhikers home and let them sleep on our pull-out sofa. Maybe it’s because my mom made me read dozens of missionary biographies. Whatever the reason, nothing about the Trump brand has ever resonated with me.

Please don’t cancel me for saying this, but *lowers voice* I don’t mind paying taxes. It seems reasonable to me that the more money you have, the more taxes you pay.

Although I’ve necessarily learned a bit about boundaries as I've gotten older, I will always lean toward mercy, gentleness, and empathy, especially for people on the margins. That’s the way God made me.

I am far more concerned about how my kids treat queer people than how queer people might treat my kids. I don’t feel threatened by people of other races and nationalities. In my book, any version of Christianity that cares about political power is suspect. 

Not wanting to pay taxes is morally neutral. Some people believe lower taxes and more individualism are the keys to a successful society. Some people believe a more communal approach (and thus higher taxes) is the key. Both have valid historical arguments on their side, and I expect that division to persist for the foreseeable future.

Likewise, we need a healthy balance of “hard” people and “soft” people, both in our everyday lives and in political roles. We need the teachers who call us on our b.s. and the teachers who let us drink Coke in class and get out early. 

It’s easy to hang out in the tough love camp (Deport the illegals! Lock up the criminals! If you don’t want a baby, you shouldn’t have sex!) until you find yourself (or your child) in need of some empathy.

Wait, you can’t send someone to prison for addiction! It’s not their fault!

It’s easy to hang out in the mercy camp (If we give people more money, surely they’ll use it wisely!) until you’ve lived with the unintended consequences of too much softness.

A bad guy stole my car and you want me to report it to a…life coach??

But the last attitude that motivates MAGA, the fear that white, Christian families with traditional gender roles are losing dominance, is not morally neutral. It’s both anti-Christian and anti-American, for the same reason: it’s based on an underlying belief that some people have inherently more value—and thus an inherent right to more power, freedom, and privilege—than others.

My fear is that a critical mass of Americans have voted Trump into office under the guise of wanting a healthier, safer, more prosperous country for everyone when what they really want is to make sure people on the margins stay on the margins.

“Under the guise of” sounds sinister. I have no idea if people are purposely being dishonest about why they like Trump. I hope not. It’s more likely that Trump got them to believe that he is on their side by appealing to those base fears about losing dominance. Once he had that perception locked in, he could pretty much espouse any policy he wanted and get people to go along with it. 

Because let’s be real: many of the policies and people that Trump is championing are not conservative. Increased government regulation of the food and agricultural industries? Praising Communist dictators? Deporting huge swaths of laborers? An electric vehicle magnate, for goodness’ sake?? 

When Biden won in 2020, I was speaking with a friend who supported Trump and was terrified about the incoming administration. I asked her what she was worried about, specifically. She said she was worried the Biden administration would cede too much power to China, making the U.S. vulnerable to all kinds of harm.

That checks out because, in late 2020, Trump had taken a stand against TikTok, citing fears that its “data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist party access to American’s personal and proprietary information—potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

Fast forward four years, and now, the Trump team has pledged to undo the TikTok ban that would force TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. The law is on the books precisely for the concerns Trump cited in 2020: TikTok gives China way too much information about us.

But suddenly, it’s no longer about national security; it’s about free speech. Trump knows he can get his people to revolt against anything if it’s framed as an infringement on free speech. I haven’t checked in with my friend, but I would bet good money she’s now less worried about the Chinese Communist Party and more worried about free speech.

Another friend of mine immediately took to Facebook in the first few hours of January 6, 2021, to re-post “proof” that Antifa was behind the storming of the capitol. Eventually, it became undeniable that it was devout Trump supporters storming the capitol. Did my friend then make another post saying, “Oops, I was wrong! I assumed it was Antifa because my group would never do something so clearly wrong as trying to stop a presidential confirmation by force”?

Of course not. He quietly removed the Antifa posts and (presumably) tuned into Tucker Carlson to find out how to repackage the events of January 6. I’m delighted that my friend is not still arguing Antifa was responsible for January 6, but without an admission of previous error, the truth is an ever-moving target.

It’s not the changing positions that bothers me. I love it when people change their minds upon learning new information. Like I said, I’d rather be wrong than stay wrong.

What bothers me is the fraying of reality that happens when large groups of people never admit they were wrong. There is never a marker along the trail to say, “This was true. This was false. We weren’t quite sure about this but now we have more information.” Every few weeks, it seems, Trump and his followers take up a new mantle and act like it was their idea all along.

In some ways, I’m pleased with Trump’s inconsistency. It’s good for us to have our categories shaken up. Do I support the U.S. sending so much military aid to Israel and Ukraine? Gosh, I’m gonna have to think about it for myself. Apparently, Democrats support Ukraine and Republicans support Israel, so I can’t just find a group to hide behind.

If Republicans want to rally around Elon Musk, I find it revisionist, but I will celebrate less carbon emissions any day of the week.

When I used a midwife to deliver my daughter twelve years ago, I got much the same reaction from friends that Jim Gaffigan and his wife got: “We thought about doing that, but we wanted our baby to LIVE.” Now those same friends are evangelizing every alternative medicine regimen they can get their hands on. It’s weird, but I’m thrilled more people are taking control of their own health.

I don’t want to be someone who refuses to participate in positive change just because “my side” didn’t come up with it.

Here’s the thing about Trump: he’ll never really be on your side. 

Whatever you think you have in common with him, you probably don’t. Not really. Donald Trump is a purely transactional person, as Mark Cuban explains. He can easily be bought. If someone has enough money and influence, they can call him on the phone and explain how he should run the country, and he’ll say, “Sounds good. You make that happen, and I’ll give you even more influence.” 

Trump convinces you he is on your side by telling you all the people who are against you. He’s certainly not the only politician to do this, but he does it with total abandon: 

The Mexicans are doping your sons. 

The trans people are creeping on your daughters.

The farmers are poisoning your food.

The environmentalists are ruining your business.

The liberals are taking your guns.

If you follow any one of these claims to its logical end, you run into problems. The majority of drugs smuggled across the border are brought in by U.S. citizens. The vast majority of sexual abuse offenders are biological men, most of them white, many of them Christian. The FDA has been warning us for decades to avoid highly processed foods with artificial ingredients. Many businesses are ruining the environment. Liberals don’t want their guns taken away, either.

Trump knows how we humans are. We like things that are attention-grabbing, easy to understand. Most good public policy is excruciatingly boring and complicated.

In an October 2024 analysis of Harris’s proposed changes to the tax code, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explains, “If these proposals were in effect in 2026, the richest 1 percent of Americans would receive an average tax increase equal to 4.1 percent of their income. Other income groups would receive tax cuts, including an average tax cut equal to 2.7 percent of income for the middle fifth of Americans and an average tax cut equal to 7 percent of income for the poorest fifth of Americans.”

You didn’t read that paragraph, did you?

“Drill, baby, drill!”

That rolls off the tongue much better, doesn’t it?

Trump doesn’t even try to give us good public policy. He knows that people latch on much more quickly to “candy” policy: Ban this! Eliminate that! Deport them! There’s a good side and a bad side, and his side (whatever it happens to be that day) is always the good side. Try to keep up. Chip chop chip.

Another term for “the good side” is “in-group.” An in-group is a set of people you identify with. For example, you might consider yourself a small business owner, a Presbyterian, or a stay-at-home mom. An out-group is a group you decidedly don’t identify with. For example, CrossFitters or Android users. (Sorry, we love you. We just don't love your green text bubbles.)

In test after test, we assume the best of people in our in-group and assume the worst of people in our out-group. We believe those people (that church, that school, that race, that family) are fundamentally flawed, that their poor decision-making is only to be expected.

We assume that members of our in-group are different from each other and capable of autonomous action, while assuming that everyone in the out-group is pretty much the same—out-group homogeneity, it’s called.

Because of this, we believe that, when someone in our in-group does something unsavory, it’s a personal failure, or it’s bad luck, or it’s sin nature. But when someone in our out-group does something unsavory, we say to ourselves, “Of course. They’re all like that. If they were more like us, this wouldn’t have happened.”

This phenomenon is why Trump is able to convince his followers to hate and fear so many people. He finds an existing grudge and leans into it, badgering you into believing some big “they” is out there threatening everything you hold dear. He never really gets to the bottom of who the "they" is, though. It's someone larger than life, nebulous; impossible to pin down, impossible to prove or disprove.

I understand none of this is simple. The U.S. is an enormous, diverse country, and I love us for that. Trump won roughly 44% of the Hispanic vote—not a majority, but pretty good. Every Hispanic person has their own values, priorities, and experiences. I know better than not to believe people about their own lives. A good chunk of Hispanic people appear to have voted based on what they believe Trump can do for them rather than what he says about them.

I hope he does not disappoint. It would be wonderful if Donald Trump turns out to be the Great Unifier, ushering in sweeping change that benefits Americans of all stripes.

I’m skeptical, because as I recall, what he ushered in last time was record levels of discord. He normalized not making any sense at all. He chipped away at our shared understanding of reality and created a universe where the only person who can be trusted is him.

Sometime, in the quiet of your own mind, I encourage you to turn off the projector of the hologram Trump has created—that animating force saying “they” are the problem and only he can save you. Turn off the podcasts and the newsletters and, for the love, the talk shows. You might look around and realize that, actually, you don’t think Vladimir Putin is so great and actually you do want your tile guy to be able to stay in the country with his wife and kids.

No matter how you slice it, Donald Trump won’t be around forever. His star is already setting. Make sure that when it’s gone, you are left with views you actually hold and actions you are proud of.

To my great relief, the last eight years have shown me that who the president is doesn’t matter that much to me. I do believe it matters—presidential actions have very real consequences—but the things I have influence over pretty much stay the same administration to administration.

The conversations I’ll have the next four years will be the same ones I’ve had the previous four years:

-Here is an opportunity to provide critical, real-life help to someone with an unplanned pregnancy. Can you help?

-How high, exactly, would the corporate tax rate have to be to make you shutter your business? Could you consider paying yourself less?

-I don’t understand the problem with having a kid with a transgender dad in our kids’ class. What is the problem?

-Explain how it is that decrepit school buildings benefit the kids in our town?

-How much did your property taxes affect your quality of life last year?

-Where in the Bible does it say that God does not want women to be leaders?

-You know it’s far more likely your kid will die from an accidental gunshot from your own gun than at the hands of a home intruder, right?

-God loves gay people, he just doesn’t love their gayness? Should we also tell brunettes that God loves them, just not their brown hair? Or perhaps we should give them all salon gift cards so they can turn into blondes?

-Sure, you may host your political event in my living room—on the condition that it doesn’t devolve into people sitting around bad-mouthing immigrants.

-Why, exactly, did Donald Trump and Ted Cruz kill the bill that would have secured the border and cracked down on sex trafficking of minors?

Where the MAGA movement indeed delivers safety, prosperity, and freedom for all Americans, I will celebrate it. Where it promotes lies, I will speak truth. Where it oppresses people on the margins, I will advocate for those people. Where it creates enemies out of thin air, I will make friends. I’ll continue to vote my conscience, pay my taxes, and pick up trash on the sidewalk.

You don’t inspire me, Donald John Trump, but neither do you scare me.