Do you have any friends or loved ones that are Trump supporters?

[MiddleRoad]

If so, what is your relationship with them?

And does their support of him change your view of them?

[PSOL]

Yea, but they all live in Iran.

[TPIG]

I do. Almost all of my family, except for my parents, support Trump. I love them as much as I always have. Despite my personal loathing of Trump, having so many loved ones support him makes it impossible for me to demonize all Trump supporters, in broad strokes.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The vast, vast majority of my friends voted for Trump.  But, I'd say that they are Trump supporters of varying stripes, because I have a few friends who have David French or Tim Keller-like politics.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Yes I had a lot of family members and friends who supported Trump but interestingly enough most despised Trump in 2016

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I do have some cousins on my father's side of the family that are pretty conservative evangelicals, (although more in the Christianity Today/Rick Warren reader type mold rather than fire and brimstone type fundamentalists, their late father was an Evangelical Free Church pastor...there's a certain type of well educated evangelical that's pretty common in Minnesota suburbs that's part of why the GOP was strong there pre-Trump and sums them up to a T...I recently posted about one's family issues here), but none of them (all women by the way^*), have ever been particularly big on Trump even if they voted for him, I remember one on Facebook venting about how he should concede during his post-election hijinks and also made posts seeming legitimately horrified on January 6, and then later her and her sister both saying they're glad that at least Mike Pence attended the inauguration and supported the second impeachment, so they're definitely not Trumpists to put it mildly. Also they're all fully vaccinated against Covid and posted about being happy about that and avoided other right-wing "tropes" of sorts. So no.

*well there was a male one but he didn't seem as conservative and...this.

[morgieb]

My step-grandfather.

Given that pretty much everyone else I know isn't an American citizen....it's hard to really think of obvious Trump supporters.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

My DAD was a TRUMP supporter and he didn't get vaccinated and died within 2 yrs of catching COVID, he had a similar bout last yr and he kept saying I had COVID I am immune from it

I don't have to be contacted by the hospital anymore

[President Johnson]

My DAD was a TRUMP supporter and he didn't get vaccinated and died within 2 yrs of catching COVID, he had a similar bout last yr and he kept saying I had COVID I am immune from it

I don't have to be contacted by the hospital anymore

My condolences. I'm sorry for your loss, king.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Yea, but they all live in Iran.

Would you mind giving like a brief profile of what that constituency is?

[Schiff for Senate]

Funny you should mention it. As I mentioned elsewhere my grandparents are visiting from India. Well, a friend of my grandmother's is also visiting for a few days, and she also fits into this category in some respects. From the Atlanta suburbs (Gwinnett County), and was a Trump 2016 voter (though she told me it was more of an anti-Clinton vote since she didn't trust Clinton). However, within a few months she came to regret her vote and voted for Biden in 2020. Based on the few political discussions I've had with her, she does not think too highly of the Democrats (she did, I think, lightly criticise their handling of the border and said that that was one of the reasons they'd do poorly in the midterms).

[Schiff for Senate]

We also briefly met and befriended some people who supported Trump. Their daughter, in the course of conversation, said her family thought Trump was the best POTUS or something like that. I was flabbergasted and at first I thought that they were kidding - it's not often you find Trump supporters, especially Indian-American Trump supporters, in these parts, and despite my parents having a wide friends circle I've always assumed it to be agiven that all are anti-Trump Democrats. Anyway, the patriarch of the family then clarified he agreed with Trump on "three out of five issues." Needless to say, they weren't our friends for long (though in all seriousness, it was more because this was shortly pre-pandemic and I believe the start of COVID lockdowns cut short our meetings and we lost touch with them since we'd only met them a couple of times).

[OSR stands with Israel]

We also briefly met and befriended some people who supported Trump. Their daughter, in the course of conversation, said her family thought Trump was the best POTUS or something like that. I was flabbergasted and at first I thought that they were kidding - it's not often you find Trump supporters, especially Indian-American Trump supporters, in these parts, and despite my parents having a wide friends circle I've always assumed it to be agiven that all are anti-Trump Democrats. Anyway, the patriarch of the family then clarified he agreed with Trump on "three out of five issues." Needless to say, they weren't our friends for long (though in all seriousness, it was more because this was shortly pre-pandemic and I believe the start of COVID lockdowns cut short our meetings and we lost touch with them since we'd only met them a couple of times).

Would you say its weird the vast majority of Trump supporters in my family and among family friends were Clinton 16 Trump 20 voters.

One thing I have noticed though is since 2016 there has been a shift where people who support right wing parties in one country start to support right wing parties in pretty much every nation they follow politics while before that wasnt the case . So many of the people I know who supported Trump were always huge BJP supporters but Democrats till 2018ish and then moved hard to the GOP and now its hard to even tell that some of them used to be Democrats.

 

[John Dule]

I've never met a Trump supporter and I don't plan to.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

My DAD was a TRUMP supporter and he didn't get vaccinated and died within 2 yrs of catching COVID, he had a similar bout last yr and he kept saying I had COVID I am immune from it

I don't have to be contacted by the hospital anymore

I'm sorry for your condolences.

But "died within 2 years of catching COVID". Is it possible he got covid before vaccinations were available? Is it possible you're not telling the right story here or leaving some details out. Also i'm not sure if he died from complications of COVID because you're not telling that either.

It wasn't also required to vaccinate yourself if you've gotten the disease before (at least in Belgium), in a certain time period after getting the disease. Some for example deliberately catched the disease in order to get a covid safe pass, esp. people who had to wait too long for getting vaccinated and risk missing out going to a foreign country or on vacation during summer for example.

I mean based on what you say: "i don't think he died because he was an anti-vaxxer."

Also every Trump fan should always know: he is pro-vax. Tell what you want about him but i admire / respect that he took this position. And every Trump fan should at least know.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

I haven't met Trump supporters in real-life in Belgium, but i've come across numerous obviously on the internet, although the majority of non-Atlas people i meet online are hard left.

I know a lot of people who vote right-wing and far-right but all of them surprisingly have one thing in common: they dislike Trump. It's possible that this is because the media controls our narrative and there is little pro-Trump exposure here, there is also no need (from the Trump side to do that). Far-right voters are economically also way more to the left than their counterparts in the USA. They talk sh**t about America often because of their healthcare, despite voting VB here. Among (some) far-right/conservative elites America might be more liked, although some obviously prefer Europe & Russia, and admire Putin more than Trump.

Among people voting far-right, America really isn't popular. I mean among the youngsters voting far-right, they prefer to refer to Hungary as how it should be done, not to America. The older people voting far-right are more likely to refer to their sh**t social welfare and social security system. They criticize America literally for (what are left-wing talking points usually). American nationalism has little appeal here. I mean I think Italian nationalism, Hungarian nationalism, .. are bigger inspirations for people here than American nationalism.

The people mostly in favour of the transatlantic alliance (but not necessarily wanting to copy the system of Africa) are the ones that are supportive of the EU and in favour of European transnationalism (European identity), while far-right usually is more in favour of national identity within or even outside of the EU.

Left and Far-left probably is more skeptical of transatlantic identity for obvious reasons, mostly because USA is a dystopia for them, like "the issue for guns" for example, and the lack of government support for the poor and high rates of economic inequality.

Most people share the opinion that they're glad they don't live in the USA. I share that opinion, like when someone else has to go to a hospital, we're like: "glad you don't live in America" for example. Belgium has good healthcare, even compared to neighbouring countries and other European countries, at least for "physical healthcare". Psychiatric / mental healthcare is worse here. But physical healthcare is probably among the best in the world here, even compared to the Netherlands for example, which became very clear during the covid pandemic, because Netherlands more often had to go in lockdown because they had fewer beds on intensive care, and some dutch covid patients had to go to Germany & Belgium for treatment.

[Meclazine for Israel]

In Australia, Trump was seen as a light hearted joke by everyone, except my girlfriend, who had a meltdown that I had to put up with for 18 months.

But seriously, no one cares about Boris Johnson, that new US President I cannot remember the name of and Emmanuel Macron.

I found better political knowledge of my electoral environment on this forum than in real life talking to Australians.

[Del Tachi]

Unfortunately, no. 

[David Hume]

We also briefly met and befriended some people who supported Trump. Their daughter, in the course of conversation, said her family thought Trump was the best POTUS or something like that. I was flabbergasted and at first I thought that they were kidding - it's not often you find Trump supporters, especially Indian-American Trump supporters, in these parts, and despite my parents having a wide friends circle I've always assumed it to be agiven that all are anti-Trump Democrats. Anyway, the patriarch of the family then clarified he agreed with Trump on "three out of five issues." Needless to say, they weren't our friends for long (though in all seriousness, it was more because this was shortly pre-pandemic and I believe the start of COVID lockdowns cut short our meetings and we lost touch with them since we'd only met them a couple of times).

I guess a lot of first generation India Americans support GOP?

[dead0man]

yes

[OSR stands with Israel]

We also briefly met and befriended some people who supported Trump. Their daughter, in the course of conversation, said her family thought Trump was the best POTUS or something like that. I was flabbergasted and at first I thought that they were kidding - it's not often you find Trump supporters, especially Indian-American Trump supporters, in these parts, and despite my parents having a wide friends circle I've always assumed it to be agiven that all are anti-Trump Democrats. Anyway, the patriarch of the family then clarified he agreed with Trump on "three out of five issues." Needless to say, they weren't our friends for long (though in all seriousness, it was more because this was shortly pre-pandemic and I believe the start of COVID lockdowns cut short our meetings and we lost touch with them since we'd only met them a couple of times).

I guess a lot of first generation India Americans support GOP?

This was pretty interesting:

The data seems to bear that out: Whereas 82% of Muslims in the Carnegie Endowment’s recent Indian American Attitudes Survey said that they planned to vote for President Biden in the 2020 elections, only 67% of Hindus did. Data from the IAAS also appears to bolster Chakrabarti’s characterization of the Hindu American experience as fundamentally an immigrant one. According to the survey, naturalized Indian Americans who have been in the U.S. more than a decade preferred Biden, whereas those who have arrived in the past decade showed stronger support for Trump. While naturalized Indian Americans in the IAAS survey were still less likely as a whole to vote and have weaker partisan affiliation compared to U.S.-born Indian Americans, Chakrabarti thinks this is changing, especially among Hindu Americans.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/chasing-the-hindu-vote

[MATTROSE94]

Yea, but they all live in Iran.

Why would any Iranian support Trump? I would expect a decent percentage of Iranian Americans born before 1985 or after 1999 to support Trump, but it would make no sense for an Iranian who never left Iran to support Trump due to the sanctions and war stuff.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Family members, friends, lots of clients.  But there are great people on both sides.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Yea, but they all live in Iran.

Why would any Iranian support Trump? I would expect a decent percentage of Iranian Americans born before 1985 or after 1999 to support Trump, but it would make no sense for an Iranian who never left Iran to support Trump due to the sanctions and war stuff.

I recall PSOL saying that his family members living back in Iran are Shahis. So take that as you will.

[Ferguson97]

My mom is a Trump supporter, and I have two friends who voted for him in 2016 but turned against him in 2020.