Salon - (archived: https://archive.ph/LyFk3 ) We should welcome MAGA remorse: I should know — it saved me

Many Trump voters have doubts. There will be a gradual, and then sudden, awakening. We must be ready to help

By Rich Logis
Contributing Writer
Published May 11, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)

It’s seemingly a daily occurrence to see testimonials from people who voted for Donald Trump but are now ready to renounce MAGA. This buyer’s remorse is just beginning, and we need to provide an off-ramp for the increasingly uncertain.

None of this should be surprising. It’s just a fact about our species: Many people only care about something when it affects them personally.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but let’s start with Trump’s attempts to deport immigrants in blatant defiance of the Constitution, without affording them their guaranteed right to due process. To some degree, these have been rebuffed.

Elon Musk’s DOGE has broken so much of what didn’t need fixing, resulting in layoffs of thousands of federal workers who thought they’d be spared. Musk has literally embodied inefficiency and we can now, once and for all, retire the romantic mythology that any accomplished businessperson will succeed in managing the $7 trillion budget of the U.S. government. Our country is not a for-profit entity and cannot be treated as one, because it is responsible for the welfare of a third of a billion people.

Fire and then aim (without ever being ready) is no way to run this government, or any other.

/snip