Opinion | Trump’s Second Term: 14 Trump Voters Discuss

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

Economy.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

Violence.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

Prices.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

Crime.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

The political divide.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

A possible war with Russia over Ukraine.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

That’s a good question. Come back to me.

Noah, 62, Latino, Texas, retired

Employment.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

A lot of the power is going back to the states. The laws on abortion now being up to the states, for example.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I was just looking at my retirement accounts, and it looks like the economy is doing pretty well right now.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

Cryptocurrency is skyrocketing.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

The election went well, but even prior to the new administration coming into office, things were going well. The economy is better. And other countries — we’re negotiating back to common sense.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

Someone just mentioned that we were divided, but I feel like this last election showed that we’re a little more unified than we thought we were, than maybe mainstream media thought we were. Mainstream media is another problem with our country. They tell us a lot of things that aren’t true.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Everybody assumes this war with Russia is going to stop, and I don’t see that happening.

Noah, 62, Latino, Texas, retired

It’s a very eye-opening moment in history. I think the election did bare some truths. People decided the right thing to do is to actually vote for what was needed and not what people were being told.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

The political crap has caused problems more than anything else. These days, it seems you share an opinion and two or three people in the crowd want to go crazy. A lot of us have lost our patriotism. In the days of the baby boomers, there was a lot of fun and excitement, even though we had the wars and everything we had to go through. We had good jobs. Incomes were increasing quicker than inflation was increasing. We were ahead of the curve. It just seemed like just a much better world to live in.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

I think it more comes from a hope. Right now, people have a hard time having normal, civil conversations about things. Everybody gets all wrapped up in feelings, and it just gets hard to have good conversations when you don’t really listen to the other person’s side. You just want to scream your view louder. Hopefully, at some point, it will get better.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

Eventually, everybody’s going to get tired of nitpicking. Everybody expects you just to be politically correct when they speak, like Chris was saying.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

Optimistic.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

Change.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

Common sense.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

Compassion.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

I feel optimistic about him.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

Patriotism.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

I was about to say the same thing.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I remember when he ran the first time, laughing with my husband. I said, “Murray, why would you vote for this person?” He said, “He’s kind of a joke.” But seeing what he did in his term and seeing what he’s saying now, he’s definitely more qualified than I thought he was.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

His mouth gets a little bit too much, but I thought he was a little bit more polished in this election, which I appreciated.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

I thought he was so arrogant, but now, I think we need someone a little arrogant. We need somebody like that to straighten up the world. I just hope he doesn’t tweet anymore.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

I voted for Donald Trump because I like the way that he was with other leaders. He wasn’t just like, “Oh, yeah, let’s be friends.” He threatened them, and he had to because they were killing our economy.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

I served in the military. I’ve been a police officer. We spend lots of money in countries that most people couldn’t find on a map, and we have people that are starving in the streets of L.A. Trump believes in this country. He believes in Christ. He loves this country.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

This is only my third election I’m voting in. You see the difference in what he was able to accomplish in his four years, as opposed to what happened these past four. He runs this country like a business. And to some extent, that’s what you have to do, because the more money that we make, the more it’s going to benefit us. I think it’s tough for some people to see that, because of the brash side of him.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

I voted for him because I thought he was really smart and really good with money. And then also health care. I think it’s really cool that he’s going to take on fighting the big health care corporations that are charging insane amounts and hopefully get that under control.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

He had a booming economy in his first term, and I can only assume he’s going to do the same thing the second time around, especially with trying to bring a lot of our foreign jobs back over here. The tariff idea is already working, as we’ve seen him meet with Justin Trudeau. So yeah, I think we’re going to be booming in the next four years.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

America will build things here again and strip down the government. I work in hospitality. It’s cheaper for me to go get a banquet chair from China than it is to get an American one. And you have these lifelong politicians — as long as they get their donation money, they just keep promising whatever. So I really like the idea of the Department of Government Efficiency. It’s too much government.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

Hopefully, the economy will be good, and he can resolve some of these issues in the foreign countries with the wars that are going on. I hope there’s more “Made in America,” bringing more jobs back here. From Covid, we learned you still have to have enough things being made here so if something goes sideways real quick, we can actually do something and not fall captive to a foreign market.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

At the end of these four years, we will have hopefully avoided World War III. Our food’s going to be healthier, not so many chemicals, because they’ll all be gone. Housing prices have hopefully gone down by then, more jobs here, corporate jobs here, manufacturing jobs here.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

Get rid of all these immigrants that have come into major cities and have caused problems.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

I really do, because it does throw the United States in a whirlwind.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

It does. My father is from Iceland. He came here. He was in the military. He spent four years in the American military. He became a citizen, and he worked for it. He didn’t sneak in to do it. I have seen a lot of theft and crime, and it revolves around people that are not documented.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

To defend the people of our country. Illegal immigration, now, that is something that does affect me personally. I live in South Brooklyn, where we have the infamous Floyd Bennett Field migrant shelter. And during a snowstorm or a storm last year, the migrants were brought to my former alma mater to sleep there for the night, and people could not go to school the next day because we had to house them.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

My mom immigrated. She’s a naturalized citizen here, but she did it the right way. It is a problem. You have illegal immigrants who have contributed nothing who are getting thousands of dollars.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

Immigration is a really big deal, but I believe that people voted because of the economy. Inflation and the cost of living — you can’t sustain it.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

Everybody talks about illegals, right? I’ve got a problem with that, to a certain extent. But we don’t talk about the people that are allowed to walk across, legally, into the United States. They come here. They get so many benefits. I think we need to move a little bit away from keep talking about the illegals and talking about immigration in general.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

They buy houses. They put 15, 20 people in those houses. They live right around the corner from me. Some take care of them. Some don’t. It brings your property values down, brings your car values down. It brings everything down. I live in farm country. They take all farm jobs. They do all the little housing jobs, the little tinkering jobs, is what they call them down here.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

There are. I’m retired. I can’t do it, but there are people down here that do those types of things.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

I think that there’s probably a very good majority of people that are undocumented that are normal, law-abiding people and could be contributing members of society. So I don’t think that getting rid of all of those is necessarily the answer. There are some that obviously don’t deserve to be here, but to just get rid of all of them — there’s people that are born here every day that — would they have to go start a new life in some other country, through no fault of their own? There could be some common-sense ways to go about doing it, other than just picking up and shipping them all out.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I think I agree with Chris. There needs to be some type of metric or something. You can’t just drive a bus down the road and say, “Hey, show me your papers or get on the bus, and we’re taking you to Mexico,” or whatever. I know that there’s a lot of hard-working immigrants here who deserve a shot. If they’ve been here for 10, 15 years, contributing, I see no problem with that.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

I just hope that it doesn’t go to his head and he starts to get reckless. I just don’t want him to get some of the wrong people in his corner, that are in his ear, that have their own agenda, maybe. Not that he would necessarily do it on purpose, but I feel like he might —

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

Be influenced.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

— go with the flow and want to please everybody and it just gets out of hand.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

I’m a little bit with Chris on that, but it does seem like this so-called election, he’s been much better about containing himself.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

The whole “our button is bigger than your button,” with the stuff going on with Russia and Ukraine. Hopefully arrogance and whatever cockiness doesn’t get in the way of calming this little situation down so we don’t take it to the next level.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

With Trump and with everybody in the political game, it’s just the bad-mouthing of other people. Just run a country. Have the best people. That’s the biggest thing.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

Is he perfect? No, but when people say he’s brash or he’s too forward, I’m like, “Well, we kind of need that.” I don’t want someone in war rooms who’s going to be polite and courteous. Be professional, but I don’t want you to be a pushover.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

I think an extreme thing that he could potentially do is banning gender-affirming care for adults. Leave the children out of it, but there’s no reason to prevent adult Americans from living their lives how they want to live their life.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

I think he needs to be a little extreme to be a leader, and a lot of times, there’s going to be people who don’t agree with him, and that’s just how things are.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

My opinion on abortion is that it’s a woman’s body. I don’t think politicians should be in a position to tell a person what they should do with their body. I just don’t agree with everything that Democrats say, but Donald is a little extreme.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I know what Kamala Harris has said on that topic, but I didn’t know what Donald had said. I couldn’t form an opinion one way or the other.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I feel like she ran a lot of her campaign on that, on the fear of abortion being banned completely.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I think that he took it off the federal government and put it on the states. He doesn’t have a say anymore.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

On abortion, I fell in the middle, leaning toward Trump, where I do agree on leaving it up to the states. But it is a woman’s body. It is her choice as to what happens with that, but there should be some regulation to late-term abortions and stuff.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

Yeah, I’m kind of in the middle. People are trying to make laws on what people do with their bodies, but it really depends upon the situation. You’ve got rape victims, people who are traumatized, people who are deathly ill. You need a law that covers that.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

I think Trump did the right thing. He just washed his hands of the whole situation and said: OK, you guys decide.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

I think Trump wanted to give the abortion rights to the state, and in my state, we just had a vote on it, where an abortion would be legal up to 24 weeks, six months of being pregnant. I think there’s certain situations when a woman should get an abortion and they should have an option to do it, but I think 12 weeks, unless it’s a certain situation — rape, incest, medically necessary for the mother or the baby — should be the limit. I like that it’s back on the states.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

I didn’t really vote for a president based on the topic of abortion.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

Personally, I don’t think the government should have any decision. They don’t tell us if we need a heart transplant, we need our leg amputated.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

I don’t really feel that overturning Roe v. Wade and putting it back on the states was a big win for the country. It’s actually probably going to do a little bit more harm than probably intended. I feel that he probably did that in order to placate his base a little bit, but I don’t agree with it.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

It didn’t really affect my voting for him, because I knew it was being voted on at the state level.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

Same as Seneca. I’m in Minneapolis, so we’re a Democratic state. You can get abortions up here. My daughters live out of the state, so that might become issues where they’re living. But that’s not why I voted for him. I voted for him for trying to get the economy back, bring jobs back to America and other reasons, too.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

It doesn’t affect my voting on him, either. I was concerned about staying out of war and being more harsh on illegal immigration.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

I feel like Putin isn’t really that much of a threat, considering the fact that he really hasn’t done anything to the United States. In fact, the United States has done a lot more to him. He’s trying to take over another country, and he’s failing.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

I don’t think we should be focusing on a country that has nuclear warheads, as Russia does, in the name of defending Ukraine.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

I have not followed it too much, other than that whole aspect of just stripping the government down. There’s a lot of unnecessary spending that we can do better with.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I heard about Elon Musk taking some things over.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

He could do a good job. Who knows?

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

I saw that Trump picked Thomas Homan as his border czar. He would do a great job, considering the fact he was in the first administration as head of ICE.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

I can’t remember the guy’s name, but for lack of a better description, the one that was accused of sexual misconduct. But I do like the fact that Trump’s trying to align his forces and set up his team. So it’s give and take.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

I think they should check on the people, run a background check and make sure that they’re qualified to be in the position, but unless there’s something huge, I think they should be going with Trump’s decision.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

If there’s somebody that even the Republicans don’t want, then there’s probably a problem.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

They need to do their job of background check but not go so far that they really dive into that one little mistake somebody made 10 years ago. People change.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

I’m glad he got picked. His stance on everything during Covid — I very much agreed with it. Obviously, if you wanted to get jabbed, by all means, get jabbed. Again, your body, your choice. We’re back to that. But as far as mandating people, I wasn’t for it. And yeah, he’s a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat, a family-run Democrat. So it’s nice to see again that Trump is trying to pull people from a diverse group of people that are available to him.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

I like the fact that he’s not going to go with the status quo on food. We put so much crap in our food that’s not legal in most countries. That’s why obesity is such a big problem here.

Noah, 62, Latino, Texas, retired

I don’t know that I have enough insight on him, but I have a mild historical optimism. I hope he gets almost Uncle Bobby-like and takes responsibility for all of the fraud that is committed throughout those departments, because that is one of the biggest sources of our expenditures in the country.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

You have to have people that are able to follow the laws of America, the Constitution, and not have somebody that wants to bend the rules and enforce whatever their mind-set might be at the time. You’ve got to also remember his age. But no, he can’t control all the legal processes in America. You’ve still got to have other people that are in control.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

As long as they’re taking the good of the country into consideration, that’s really my main concern.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

I actually do go to school for criminal law, so I just want to say that the F.B.I. director and the U.S. attorney general should be holding accountable those who need to be accounted for in the government. Political witch hunts should end on both sides.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

Donald Trump and then let’s say Hunter Biden.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

Illegal.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

Foolish.

Joseph, 55, white, Minnesota, handyman

No skin off my teeth.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

My biggest thing is that for Biden to say he wasn’t going to pardon his son, he was going to leave the decision up to the courts and then to do it — he should have just pardoned him earlier and saved the tax money of going through that process if he was going to do this the whole time.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

It’s on brand for the Bidens.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

It’s illegal. It’s a conflict of interest. I’m a notary in my state, and I can’t even notarize for my own family members. So for someone to pardon someone of their crimes, being a family member, it’s just insane.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

It’s nepotism at its finest, right there.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

I need more details on each case.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

They destroyed property. They got caught. They should probably suffer the consequences of what they did.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

Ditto.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

I’m kind of in the middle. The ones that were actually lawbreakers shouldn’t be pardoned. When they went into the Capitol building, some were just there, peaceful protesters. Maybe those people can get some type of pardon or commute their sentences. They shouldn’t be serving 15 years for just walking into the Capitol building. The ones that were violent and actually went in and took over in the Capitol building, they shouldn’t be pardoned.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

The ones that actually did violence should be punished accordingly, but the ones that were peaceful, no.

Kathi, 57, white, Ohio, property management

Stop putting labels on things or people.

Brandon, 48, white, North Carolina, food industry

Yeah, same thing. Stop looking at this side, that side.

Kenneth, 62, Black, California, truck driver

Politicians, they divide us. Not labels. We watch football, and everyone gets along, and we’re happy. When we listen to Fox and CNN, they divide us.

Mary, 50, Asian, Wyoming, assistant

I’d like to see more unity and a lot less hate. There’s so much hate-speak. It would be really nice if we could all talk to each other, finally.

Ashley, 31, white, Missouri, customer service

Being able to afford houses now is my biggest concern. Big corporations buying up all the housing and renting them out is, I think, the worst thing that’s happening right now.

Nicholas, 20, white, New York, driver

Stop criticizing people for their political opinions.

Chris, 46, white, Pennsylvania, line technician

Term limits on every public servant. Nothing’s going to change if we have the same people in office for 30 years.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

I want to see the space program take off again.

Julie, 65, white, Maryland, machinist

All of it.

Direnda, 66, white, Kentucky, house cleaner

The youth needs to learn how to get back to the basics. They need to learn how to put in a garden. They need to learn how to repair their cars and their vehicles. They need to learn how to sew. The whole bit — just start over.

Seneca, 28, white, Arizona, charge specialist

I think we need to change how we manage our money.

Noah, 62, Latino, Texas, retired

I think our country would be better off having a more informed citizenry and where people argue their own ideas, not just their party’s statement, on everything from immigration to the economy.

Erich, 23, white, New Jersey, lacrosse coach

I want to see a healthy country again. I want to see kids playing outside instead of only being on screens. I want to see people, as they get older, continue to stay active. I want to see people care about what we’re putting in our bodies just a little bit more than what we see now.

Jason, 38, white, Florida, realtor

We need a better political system than two parties, because I think having parties makes things so divided. I don’t know how it would work, but having two parties is just splitting us up, as we clearly see through everyone arguing all the time. We need something better.