President Donald J. Trump shakes hands and poses for photos with supporters Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019, upon his arrival to Ocala International Airport in Ocala, Fla., en route to visit The Villages, FL. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
President Donald Trump is quickly losing support from those in his home state of Florida.
Bloomberg opinion columnist Mary Ellen Klas penned a Sunday piece where she revealed that many of the people she knows who are supporters of Trump are privately uncomfortable with his actions in the first year.
The Florida resident described the MAGA voters "queasy" over "brazen corruption" coming out of the second Trump administration.
The invasion of Venezuela is the most recent example. While ousting former President Nicolás Maduro was supported overwhelmingly by both sides of the political aisle, there is still a need for transparency about what the U.S. intends to do there and how much tax payer dollars will be used to fund what Trump wants.
"Yet, they don’t feel right calling out Trump for this or his other transgressions, so they dance around it — often trying to find some equivalent outrage under a Democratic administration," Klas said.
The problem they're finding, she wrote, is that there are no equivalences. While Trump's Cabinet officials have taken a "wrecking-ball" to the U.S. government, she noted GOP lawmakers "have remained virtually dormant." The administration has taken over Congress' power to control budget and spending, appointments to independent agencies and demote the power of other branches of the federal government.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is trying to prosecute Trump's opponents. All the while, Trump is taking advantage of "self-enriching deals, the firing of Justice Department watchdogs, the sweeping use of the president’s pardon power to free his allies — regardless of the seriousness of their crimes — and the frightening near-abandonment of the rule of law," wrote Klas.
From those she's spoken to, Klas said that many MAGA supporters bought into his 2024 campaign messages. Now, however, Americans are "afraid."
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime and that’s the type of government that instills fear and puts people in jail and punishes them for their viewpoints,” said Marcos Daniel Jiménez, a former US attorney under former President George W. Bush told Klas.
“That’s exactly what this president is doing — maybe not to that level — but the retribution and the attacks by the president and his cronies have caused many people who own businesses and have families to be afraid," Jiménez continued.
In fact, several Cuban Americans told Klas that they see parallels between Trump and former President Fidel Castro. Jiménez was the only one who would go on the record with her. Others were afraid of retaliation from Trump and his allies.
"Those who have experience with life in an authoritarian regime know best what will happen if the Trump administration continues down its current path. But they don’t see it in their self-interest to speak out. Social scientists call this the 'collective action problem,' when individuals acting in their own self-interest contribute to a worse outcome for the entire group," she continued.
In an essay for his students, Associate Professor of Law Dakota Rudesill advised Americans to consider their personal values and refuse to lower their standards.
Rudesill explained to Klaus that often when people see things that conflicts with their values they try to explain it away rather than standing up for what they believe in.
“But if everybody just looks to their immediate self-interest, then we are all just going to consent to transaction, submission, intimidation and threat — which undermines everything we believe in," Rudesill said.
Sometimes, she closed, it only takes one voice.