How to Respond to Trump Regret?

Schadenfreude only goes so far.

Photo by Zoran Zonde Stojanovski on Unsplash

Earlier this week The Hill’s Matt K. Lewis noted the difficulty that Donald Trump will have in holding his fractious 2024 coalition together:

Trump’s coalition encompasses a messy mix: McDonald’s fast-food enthusiasts and RFK Jr. devotees worried about ultra-processed foods and seed oils; rural farmers harmed by Trump’s tariffs; and both hawkish internationalists like soon-to-be Secretary of State Marco Rubio and non-interventionists like Tucker Carlson.

And that’s just the insiders. Among Trump voters, you’ll find staunch pro-lifers alongside pro-choice voters who assume Trump secretly agrees with them; working-class Hispanics alongside immigration restrictionists who want mass deportations and an end to birthright citizenship; and populists who demand entitlements remain untouched alongside fiscal hawks calling for deep spending cuts.

Holding this coalition together will be one of Trump’s greatest challenges in his second term. It’s a happy dilemma, but also a test of political skill.

Cracks are already showing.

That last sentence might be an understatement. Indeed, Trump has not even been sworn in yet but there have already been a raft of stories about those who voted for him realizing that they might have made a terrible mistake.

In mid-November, for example, Reuters’ Andrea Shalal reported that Trump’s cabinet selections had roiled the Muslims who supported him over Kamala Harris:

U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.

"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others," said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump….

Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Trump's staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared.

"It's like he's going on Zionist overdrive," he said. "We were always extremely skeptical ... Obviously we're still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played."

Other blocs of Trump voters are also expressing wariness, like farmers concerned they will lose their workforce. Or low-income Trump supporters who are newly worried that their government benefits will get cut by the non-existent Department of Government Efficiency.

Also back in November, an Axios-sponsored focus group revealed consternation about the outsized role that Elon Musk appeared to be playing in the transition: “12 of 14 participants in this week's sessions said they were familiar with Musk's advising Trump. Of those, five said it's a bad thing, seven didn't know what to say and none would say it was good…. The five saying it's a bad idea for Trump to work so closely with Musk are a combination of Harris-, Trump- and third-party voters.”

That was just a focus group, but it does appear that Musk’s subsequent interventions have roiled the MAGA waters considerably. Musk’s jihad against the budget deal earlier this month accomplished very little for Donald Trump. It did, however, remove restrictions on outbound foreign direct investment in China, which would have made life difficult for Musk and Tesla.

More cracks have emerged over the past week over immigration. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy began arguing in favor of the economic utility of H1-B visas. The more extreme MAGA factions arguing against said visas because they oppose *checks notes* all immigration that involves brown people as near as I can figure. To be fair, neither Ramaswamy nor Musk handled themselves particularly well either, with Ramaswamy claiming that American culture “venerated mediocrity over excellence” and something about how Americans watch too much Friends or something — it wasn’t terribly coherent.¹ A true cornucopia of bigotry inside the Trump coalition!

By this weekend, the Washington Post’s Pranshu Verma and Cat Zakrzewski reported that, “the fight that spilled into public view over the holiday week could preview a wedge within Trump’s coalition over how to execute immigration policy, an issue that animated Trump’s White House campaign…. The [MAGA] critique sparked a broader debate about immigration in the tech industry, which relies heavily on a visa program that allows foreigners with technical skills to work in the United States for up to six years under H-1B nonimmigrant status.” The fight itself caused some Trump supporters to express regret for their votes. The effect of Trump’s support for Musk’s position will be interesting to watch.

Stories like these tend to prompt one of two reactions among those folks who did not vote for Trump this year. The first is pure schadenfreude. Or as Paul Krugman puts it, “pass the popcorn.” Watching two groups with pretty blinkered theories about what makes America great fight each other has its amusements. Or would have, if they were not fighting over who gets to pilot the airplane that I happen to be flying.