Many voters set aside their concerns about Donald Trump's authoritarian ambitions — while others willingly embraced those anti-democratic tendencies, a new report claimed Monday.
The former president won many traditionally Democratic neighborhorhoods, including in Pennsylvania where he got the widest margin of victory since Ronald Reagan, with gains all over the crucial swing state including in working-class communities like Allentown and Johnstown.
And Trump's supporters weren't blind to his dictatorial tendencies, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“I think Trump’s personality lends itself to people thinking he’s going to be a dictator,” said Chris Gregas, a hospice chaplain from Pleasantville, NJ. “I do think he’s a strong leader, and I do think those who have been detrimental to this country, he’s going to come after some of them — and rightfully so. I don’t think he’s going after the moderate person, the average person.”
Many complained that Democrats had disparaged Trump and other GOP candidates as fascist going back to at least George W. Bush, and they rejected that definition.
“What about the Democratic Party?” said James Pizzo, a Trump supporter from South Philadelphia. “What about what they call us? I’m not garbage. I’m not fascist. I’m not Hitler!”
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Trump's sometimes baffling behavior on the campaign trail, including pretending to work at McDonalds and dancing onstage for 30 minutes, helped soften his image to voters who may have been concerned about his threats to be dictator on Day One, the report stated.
“The American public has heard for so long that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy that it’s like when you put a Post-it on your desk and you’re like, ‘I have to remember this,’ but your eye glazes over it,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by Trump content, so when he is literally fellating a microphone, people are like, shrug.”
Matt Wolfson, a 45-year-old former construction worker from Scranton, said he was concerned about Trump's authoritarian personality, but he believed that could help keep the U.S. out of wars and possibly bring peace in Ukraine and elsewhere.
“He’s good and bad," Wolfson said. "People say he’s a dictator. I believe that. I consider him like Hitler. But I voted for the man.”