Within days of the election, some Americans who voted Donald Trump for President were already experiencing buyer’s remorse. They were forced to face the likelihood of losing healthcare while simultaneously watching Trump fill his cabinet with the very Wall Street elites he had taught his supporters to scorn.
Regretful Trump voters were quickly brushed off and treated as laughingstocks, but one viral photo of a regretful Trump voter is inspiring a surprisingly compassionate discussion.
It’s no secret that the many poor, rural Americans who voted for Trump acted against their best interests. Trump’s policies offer a vast tax break to the wealthy, attack the social safety net and programs relied on by the poor and elderly, and threaten to strip 24 million Americans of their access to health insurance. All of this could have been foreseen with a little research and mindfulness, yet Trump’s confidence, deceitful rhetoric, and appeal to the insecurities of his base managed to fool just enough voters.
Now, just weeks after the House GOP introduced their disastrous healthcare bill, a photo of a man named James Walker (wearing his “Make America Great Again” cap and wielding a sign that says “I’VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE”) is going viral on Twitter. Walker told The Guardian’s David Smith, “This is the first step: showing up and being honest.”
Trump voter James Walker, 31, from Nashville, says: "This is the first step: showing up and being honest." pic.twitter.com/kP1vLUHxNl
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 15, 2017
Compassion is likely to be more productive than mockery and derision in fostering this honest dialogue and achieving positive change come 2020. If we really want to make sure this never happens again, it’s crucial for Americans who voted Trump to recognize they made a mistake in the first place.
