On Wednesday, January 6, a line was drawn in the sand. Prior to this date, critics had unjustly beaten Trump supporters because they were insanely violent, fueled by resentment for four years, but could not indicate any major evidence of it.
Yes, the 2017 march in Charlottesville was deadly and shocking, but the protesters involved in that event were white supremacists who opposed the removal of Confederate statues. They were not there to support President Trump.
Then, on January 6, critics turned out to be right, as thousands of Trump fans – spurred on by the president during a rally – surrounded the U.S. Chapter and stormed it as Congress tried to certify the election. .
The ensuing revolt embarrassed our nation. The scenes were chaotic and terrifying, with protesters smashing windows and knocking on doors, waving Confederate flags in convention halls, using leadership desks as selfie platforms. When it was all over, dozens of officers were injured and five people died.
The president did nothing to stop the massacre but to say inaccurately in a video on Twitter that the election was stolen and that his people should go home.
Trump and the crowd have given his critics the proof they have always wanted. From now on, riots will forever be synonymous with Trumpism. His populist platform, which gave voice and hope to marginalized people, workers across the country, will now be discredited.
Jamie Roe, a Trump voter in Sterling Heights, Michigan, said any goodwill left to the president evaporated Wednesday.
“So did any chance of running again,” Roe said of speculation that Trump could campaign for president in 2024. “His brand is ruined. Ruinous. He took everything he achieved and threw everything away. He had the opportunity to use his last weeks in office to push the distribution of the vaccine and give people a chance to miss what he has achieved. Instead, he used it like a moon rage.
“What he did was a betrayal.”
I have been covering Trump’s conservative populist coalition for more than five years, since he descended the golden escalator from Trump Tower in August 2015 and announced his candidacy.
While the press that day focused on its unorthodox entry and sharp words on illegal immigrants, people outside the elite circles heard a completely different message about restoring the dignity of work and bringing communities back to despair.
Although Trump continued to make rude comments about minorities, Gold Star families, a disabled reporter, and Megyn Kelly, his appeal grew with working-class Democrats, independents, evangelical voters, and reluctant suburban Republicans. “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and not lose voters,” Trump said in 2016, before defeating Hillary Clinton in a rage that shocked the media, but not her supporters. Even after the Capitol Hill siege, some voters still say they support it: a YouGov poll found that 45% of Republicans actively support the mafia’s actions, while 43% oppose it. And while a handful of Trump fans have told me they’re still behind him because they have no one else to fight for them in DC, none of them will make it.
Most of the Trump supporters I’ve met and interviewed over the years feel like Mike Martin of Erie County. “When he dies, he probably won’t even have the president’s funeral. Will we even have a Trump presidential library? Probably not, ”said Martin, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Martin said none of his friends who voted for Trump support him now – something he thought would never happen.
“All those reporters will want to write the story of what Trump would do to lose his vote … well, they finally got their story,” he said. “And he blames no one but himself.”
While the actions of a few should never tarnish the good intentions of many, this is exactly what will happen now.
“The vast majority of people were there just to hear the president speak,” said Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist in western Pennsylvania. “The president just went up there and incited them.”
Trump “has been storing this for weeks and anyone with a brain could have seen it coming,” Mikus added. “When you play with people’s emotions for a long time, especially if they are vulnerable, you play with fire.”
For Roe, a Republican strategist, this moment is personal: “I had tears on my face. He’s heartbreaking as an American. I voted for this guy. I voted for him in the mayor’s office in 2016. I voted for him twice in the general election.
“If you voted for him, there will be people who will put this on you.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s four years of good policies – Middle East peace agreements, heavy trade with China, tax cuts, conservative Supreme Court appointments – will now always be affected.
Roe has one word for what Trump did to his legacy and to reasonable, law-abiding Americans who believed in him: “Inconsiderable. Yes, he is unconscious. ”
Salena Zito is the co-author of the book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Remodeling American Politics” (Crown Forum), now released.