U.S. President Donald Trump reacts on stage at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare
On Tuesday, a new report by the New York Times revealed that a growing number of MAGA voters are realizing that they’ve been lied to by President Donald Trump. As one former Trump supporter put it, his behavior and policies are flat-out “insulting,” and the GOP will reap the backlash in November.
“We drank the Kool-Aid, and we were wrong,” said Ryan Wagner, a conservative in Michigan who was once an enthusiastic supporter of the president. According to the Times, Wagner "has had a slow-motion realization that Mr. Trump has been lying to Americans... It began last year with the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which Mr. Wagner thought did not add up. It continued when Mr. Trump started a war. Now, Mr. Wagner said, when he hears Mr. Trump talk about how much food prices have gone down, ‘my freaking eye is twitching.’”
“I can’t even listen to him talk anymore,” said Wagner. “How many times has he said the war is over, the strait is open? No it’s not, you big liar.” According to the Times, “Wagner said he had taken down his American flag and considered the Republican Party mostly dead. He doesn’t think he will vote in this election.”
Jeff Sieting, the mayor of Kalkaska, Michigan, is done with Trump as well. After years of supporting him, even hanging a large banner in town during Trump’s first term, Sieting says it was the Epstein files that angered him once and for all. As he told the Times, “When Trump said, ‘Let’s move on,’ that pierced my heart. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” He says he has even stopped watching Fox News, asserting he can no longer trust it to tell the truth. “If you listen to the media, you’ll hear that New York is in collapse, they’re doing government grocery stores. The reality is, that is absolute bull—.” Sieting said Trump’s promise of $5,000 if Americans keep Republicans in power after the midterms was “the most insulting, pathetic thing.” He told the Times that he did not plan to vote in the midterms, and that he knew many staunch Trump supporters who were not voting either. “I full well expect the Democrats to sweep the midterms,” he predicted.
“I feel like I was sold a bill of goods,” agreed Paul Carroll, a former Trump supporter in New Orleans who turned against him for starting a war when he said he wouldn’t, and whose anger has climbed with diesel prices. “The goods I agreed to buy were nothing like what was delivered.”