Millions of Democrats and independents view Trump’s four years in office as a disaster but for supporters it is his biggest asset
Wearing a shirt festooned with countless images of Donald Trump, Leverne Martin was looking cheerful for a man who had set off from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, at 9pm and driven through the night, arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, at 5.30am. When did he intend to sleep?
“As soon as President Trump is back in the White House,” the 55-year-old handyman replied without missing a beat. “If we don’t get him back in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where he belongs, we’re in a mess, man. That’s why I’m voting for President Trump. That’s why I drove nine hours.”
On a grey, rainy day, Martin was near the head of a long and winding queue outside a cavernous conference centre overlooking the Mississippi River. Like so many fans in so many towns and cities over nearly a decade, an overwhelmingly white crowd had come to cheer on Trump, elected US president in 2016, beaten by Joe Biden in 2020 and clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
They are not clueless, they want to be lawless like Trump. They think we've created a fragile and disfunctional society by trying to make things fair, and these leftist ideologies are what's keeping them back from living the American dream.
They feel oppressed when they can't slap a womans ass in public, or just feeling out of place wherever they go because they want to throw trash on the ground, drive big trucks and buy as much toilet paper as they want. They think if Trump was elected, they would become the people who decide what's ok and not ok in society. Literally a "incel beta uprising" mentality.
TL;DR, They think when the revolution comes they'll be handed clipboards