Do I regret voting for Trump?

I think it’s a bit of a gut check to watch every day the horrors of the Trump administration knowing that I checked the box next to his name on the conservative line last October. I was annoyed that there was no alternative to Trump or Harris. Was it the right thing to do, looking back eight months ago?

I am a fairly liberal person, a Democrat but I do like my guns, the time I spend in the wilderness and my fires and freedom. With Biden it seemed like everything revolved around banning guns and whatever was the trendy, woke, wearing liberalism on your sleeve of the day. Everything was a meaningless slogan, a proclamation. Maybe Biden was a competent technocrat who got things running well in the background but it always seemed like he was just whining about the need to ban guns as inflation went upwards.

On the whole, I probably agreed with most of Biden’s policies more than Trump. Still I somehow thought Trump would be a bumbling conservative, push things a bit to the right and get us a nice little tax cut but it so far has seemed much different than what it appeared to be. I thought he would be much more likely to legalize pot federally without the conservative pushback Harris would get.

While I hardly embrace many of Trump’s policies, I do think the federal government was long overdue for a deep cleaning and some of the agencies which had grown and had mission creep and needed decades worth of pruning. Things like free roads for EVs, big tax credits for solar and cars not only en        couraged sales but also fraud. Maybe it was time for these technologies to stand on their own. The immigration situation seemed to be boiling out of control with local hotels full of people from other countries living on the government dime. Lots needed to change.

In contrast, government does a lot of important things and I do worry Trump is pushing out a lot of talented people with diverse viewpoints that are needed to move our country forward. DEI might have gotten a bit absurd to the end but an all white, all elderly male workforce is hardly one with the creative, diverse backgrounds needing to move society forward. The tarrifs are just idiotic. I am less disturbed about his tax cut – who doesn’t like a tax cut – even if it’s pretty minor this time around, unless of course you work overtime or for tips. I’m unfortunately management now.