Donald Trump voters who spoke to the New York Times during a Detroit MAGA rally last week told a reporter they were voting for the former president because they didn’t believe his threats.
The Times' reporter listed several ominous promises the GOP presidential nominee has made over and over again, including mass deportations of immigrants, a vow to be a dictator on “day one,” and weaponizing the Department of Justice against his enemies.
And his supporters brushed them off as empty threats.
“The former president has talked about weaponizing the Justice Department and jailing political opponents. He has said he would purge the government of non-loyalists and that he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen. He proposed ‘one really violent day’ in which police officers could get “extraordinarily rough” with impunity. He has promised mass deportations and predicted it would be ‘a bloody story,’” the report stated.
“And while many of his supporters thrill at such talk, there are plenty of others who figure it’s all just part of some big act. A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will.”
“I think the media blows stuff out of proportion for sensationalism,” Mario Fachini told the Times.
Asked specifically if he believed threats to fill the federal government with Trump allies, Fachini said, “I don’t.” He added, “It could just be for publicity, just riling up the news.”
Another voter, Mary Burney, shrugged off threats to prosecute Trump’s opponents.
“I don’t think that’s on his list of things to do,” she said. “No, no.”
Tom Pierce didn’t believe the mass deportation claims.
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“He may say things, and then it gets people all upset, but then he turns around and he says, ‘No, I’m not doing that.’ he said. “It’s a negotiation. But people don’t understand that.”
He also doubted Trump would impose tariffs on imports. “No,” he said when asked if he thought it would happen. “That’s the other thing. You’ve got to sometimes scare these other countries.”
According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, the voters spoken to are not alone — 41 percent of those asked said “people who are offended by Donald Trump take his words too seriously.”
“People think he says things for effect, that he’s blustering, because that’s part of what he does, his shtick. They don’t believe that it’s actually going to happen,” Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told the Times.