They may think he’s off kilter….
But it doesn’t matter…
They have his back and vote….
In lengthy interviews over the last several weeks, a cross-section of Trump voters said they believed he had succeeded on issues like hardening the Southern border, appointing conservative judges, taking on China and putting “America first.” Many said the president’s grievances were their grievances, too. They believed kneeling during the national anthem was un-American, and they were appalled at what they viewed as liberals’ minimizing of violence that at times grew out of the protests over the killing of George Floyd.
At the same time, Trump voters dismissed as irrelevant aspects of the president’s behavior that critics say make him historically unfit for office. All politicians lie, many said; as for the president’s suggestion that he might not accept the election results, supporters said voters should judge his actions, not his loose talk or tweets.
“I didn’t vote for Trump because I wanted him to be my best friend,” Ms. Schenkel said. “I wanted to make a change and a difference.”
“If he thinks it’s the right thing, he doesn’t care who’s going to get mad at him,” she added. “I think he’s very misunderstood.”
Asked about her two votes for Mr. Obama, Ms. Schenkel faulted him for doing little, in her view, to heal racial divisions or lift the Black community. She cited a “blood bath” of crime in Chicagowhose victims are mainly young Black men, and a high abortion rate for African-American women. “I feel he made race relations the worst I’ve seen in my 50 years,” she said.
A longtime resident of Minnesota, Ms. Schenkel moved with her husband last year to North Carolina to be closer to their grandchildren. She found work using her law degree in a bank loan department, while her husband babysits.
She grades the president highly on having met his promises, including slowing the flow of undocumented immigrants and building a strong economy before the virus struck.
Other Trump supporters outlined myriad reasons for wanting to re-elect him, ranging from the pragmatic, like a new job made possible by the administration’s policies, to a gut-level attraction to his hard-nosed personality. His supporters related “aha” moments in their upbringing when they realized they were conservatives, which they spoke of as nonnegotiable beliefs woven into their identity, like opposition to abortion….