As I watched Kamala Harris certify the results of the 2024 presidential election today, I couldn't help but feel a hint of excitement — and not just because she had to admit again that she lost. Whether it's the strain of the economy or the influx of criminals and terrorists due to an open border or the fact that no one seems to understand sex and gender anymore, the last four years have been a disaster to say the least. But I guess that was to be expected.
It's not a place where I ever saw myself. I know I'll catch some flak for this, but I'm going to be real here: I haven't always been a Donald Trump supporter. I've hinted at that in previous articles, and I've been called everything from an idiot to an irrational thinker in the comments sections for it, so you can save all that. (Though I'd like to point out that welcoming people who finally decide to vote for your candidate is probably the better way to go when you want to win an election. Just sayin'.) I've also been called "Never Trump," which isn't exactly true either. I guess you could say I'm somewhere in between. Or I was. That all changed on July 13, 2024.
In 2016, after a lifetime of being obsessed with politics — I think I can blame my grandfather for that (oh, how I wish he was here to see all of this) — and holding strong views on the need for a small government and individual freedom, I saw the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton as a race between big government and even bigger government. I campaigned a little bit for Marco Rubio and when he was out, so was I. I found that I just didn't care anymore. The only joy I got from Trump winning the presidency that year was watching all the Hillary supporters lose their minds over it. Otherwise, I checked out.
When the 2020 election rolled around, I'll admit Trump had impressed me for the most part. Unlike any other president in my lifetime, he wasn't afraid to stand up to people and do the right thing in many cases, so I voted for him, but I was still mostly checked out. Between the pandemic and the fact that I was the sole caregiver for two very sick parents at the time, I just didn't have it in me. And when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won (or "won"), I felt like that was it for the good ol' USA as we know it. It was too late to save this sinking ship. When Trump became the Republican nominee for 2024, I doubled down on that way of thinking because I thought there was no way in hell he'd win. I even toyed with the idea of leaving the country for a while.
Boy was I wrong. As I said, July 13, 2024 changed everything for me, and I think it did for many other Americans. When I saw someone who hated a political candidate so much that he would try to kill him, I got angry. That wasn't just an attack on Donald Trump, it was an attack on our entire country and everything it stands for.
I managed to muster up the patriotism that I thought was long gone. Combine it all with the fact that the other party was playing a game of "Nothing to See Here" as they propped up an old man with the mental capacity of your average nursing home resident with dementia and then pulled the old switcheroo by replacing him with a woman who could barely string together a complete sentence, and it finally hit me that this wasn't about picking the lesser of two evils. For better or worse, it was about choosing someone from outside the swamp to save this country from the brink. I guess some of you may say I came to my senses. Heck, I even changed my whole career path and returned to my roots writing about news and politics, something I swore over a decade ago that I'd never do again.
And it's not just me. We saw groups of voters trend towards Trump who hadn't voted for a Republican president in decades, if ever. While I believe there are a million reasons for this, I honestly think the country is fed up and tired of the same old thing every election cycle. We're tired of the Bushes, the Cheneys, the Clintons, the Pelosis, and the Bidens. We're tired of our only options being the same handful of people who have been in power, in some of our cases, for our entire lifetimes.
Now that I got that off my chest, I'd like to hear your story. There have to be more of you out there who were not enamored with Trump in the beginning but eventually came around. What made you change your mind? Or even if you did like him from the beginning, tell me why. What was I missing? Is there anyone out there who voted for him for the first time in 2024? Let me know in the comments.
