The Trump Voters Who Don’t Believe Trump
When the former president endorses violence and proposes using the government to attack his enemies, many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.
The Trump Voters Who Don’t Believe Trump
When the former president endorses violence and proposes using the government to attack his enemies, many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.
Attendees listen to Trump speak at the Detroit Economic Club last Thursday.Credit...Emily Elconin for The New York Times
By Shawn McCreesh
Reporting from Detroit
Oct. 14, 2024 Leer en español
One of the more peculiar aspects of Donald J. Trump’s political appeal is this: A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will.
The former president has talked about weaponizing the Justice Department and jailing political opponents. He has said he would purge the government of non-loyalists and that he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen. He proposed “one really violent day” in which police officers could get “extraordinarily rough” with impunity. He has promised mass deportations and predicted it would be “a bloody story.” And while many of his supporters thrill at such talk, there are plenty of others who figure it’s all just part of some big act.
There is, of course, evidence to the contrary. During Mr. Trump’s term in office, some of his autocratic rhetoric did become reality. He really did set in motion a Muslim ban; he really did order up investigations of his foes; he really did foment a mob when the election didn’t go his way. But in other instances he was stymied, and a lot of his strongman jaw-jaw remained just that.
That’s the way some of his voters think another term might go. It’s how they rationalize his rhetoric, by affording him a reverse benefit of the doubt. They doubt; he benefits.
Last Thursday, inside a small music venue in downtown Detroit during the middle of the day, you could see this phenomenon playing out quite clearly.
Mr. Trump was there to address the Detroit Economic Club. Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had all, in their respective days, come to Michigan to talk to this club, too.
There were a few hundred people there. They were not the sorts of people one encounters at a Trump rally. They weren’t construction workers or truck drivers or forklift operators; they carried business cards and had very active LinkedIn pages. They did not wear red hats or T-shirts with images of Mr. Trump’s bloodied face; they wore windowpane suit jackets and loafers and rather conspicuous cuff links.
They did not want to hear about “one really violent day” or about the deep state or the Marxists or the fascists or any of the other radical or antidemocratic visions that Mr. Trump describes in baroque detail at his rallies. They just wanted him to tell them that he would be good for business.
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Mr. Trump spoke for two hours. Some of his supporters at the Detroit Economic Club said they didn’t believe he would do some of what he has promised.Credit...Emily Elconin for The New York Times
So, he did. For nearly two hours. There were rough edges in his remarks, and some talk of a stolen election, but mostly he made them feel content in their choice to vote for him. They chuckled at his self-deprecating wisecracks about his age, his body, his hair and his wealth. He talked about American muscle cars and regaled them with tales of how he went toe-to-toe with various world leaders and about his new buddy, Elon Musk. They cooed when he told them his daughter Tiffany was newly pregnant, and clapped when he said, however improbably, that he would work with Democrats to get stuff done. This was the version of Mr. Trump in which they (and their 401ks) wanted to believe.
They found it easy to tune out the other versions of him.
“I think the media blows stuff out of proportion for sensationalism,” said Mario Fachini, a 40-year-old Detroit man who owns a book publishing company. His black hair was gelled back and he had on a boxy, black pinstriped suit with a gold pocket square peeking out. There were tiny model globes hanging from his cuff links. He held up his wrist and gave one a spin.
More on the 2024 Election
- The Search for Undecided Voters: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are carrying out a virtual house-to-house hunt for the few voters who are still up for grabs.
- A Lifetime of Scandals: No major party presidential candidate, much less president, in American history has been accused of wrongdoing as many times as Trump.
- Harris’s Closing Argument: Harris has made a notable shift in strategy to paint Trump as unfit and dangerous as Democrats grow anxious about the closeness of the race.
Asked if he believed Mr. Trump would purge the federal government and fill its ranks with election deniers, Mr. Fachini sipped his iced tea and thought for a moment. “I don’t,” he said. So why was Mr. Trump saying he wanted to do that? “It could just be for publicity,” Mr. Fachini said with a shrug, “just riling up the news.”
Mary Burney, a 49-year-old woman from Grosse Pointe, Mich., who works in sales for a radio station, described herself as an independent-turned-Trump-voter. She did not believe the former president would really persecute his political opponents, even though he has mused about appointing a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and members of his family. “I don’t think that’s on his list of things to do,” she said. “No, no.”
