President Trump promised profound change. His former aide Steve Bannon said the first few weeks would be ‘days of thunder’.
It’s been all of that and more.
Domestically and globally Donald Trump has proudly upturned norms.
One key question for me these past few weeks has been: if much of the world (and liberal America) has been buffeted and bewildered by Donald Trump, what do those who chose him back in November think, nearly 50 days in?
I’ve been back to Pennsylvania, a place I have spent plenty of time over the past few years. It’s crucial in every election and was particularly so last November.
The state is sort of a microcosm for the country. To the east and west are the urban Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In between are the rural Republican heartlands. And dotted throughout are the hinterlands – smaller towns where there is more of a mix of voters but still with a general lean towards the Republicans or, more specifically, to Trump.
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Gettysburg and Waynesboro both voted broadly two-thirds for Trump and one-third for Kamala Harris back in November.
On the edge of Gettysburg, a bleak rocky outcrop marks the location of the battle which changed the course of the civil war. The threads which stitch America run through this place.
A few hundred metres away is the spot where Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg address.
It was 1863 and America’s 16th president marked the end of the battle with a reminder to a country divided by a civil war that it was a nation founded years earlier on the principles of liberty and equality.
Lincoln was America’s most consequential president, until now, maybe.
In the town’s Lincoln Square, a statue of the 16th president stands tall. My focus was the new White House occupant.
“10!” It was the first of many ‘tens’ on my Trump scorecard.
“Oh he’s doing great…Yeah he’s doing real great,” one man said.
I asked what, in particular, he was happy with. “The money he’s making me.” The theme was the same with the next person.
“Trying to pass no tax on social security for one, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime – help out the workers, help out the retirees, that’s very important to me,” Mike said.
My third conversation was with a couple. I suggested to them that the federal firings had felt quite chaotic; a sledgehammer approach.
“No. I think they’re using a scalpel. They’re finding so much. It looks bad,” the man said.
“We had too many people that were in those jobs, they weren’t doing anything,” his wife added.
“He’s upsetting Europe as well…” I said in my next conversation. “That’s not good, is it? We’re supposed to be friends.” I suggested with a smile.
“Yeah, well we need Europe to step up too,” the man replied.
“Zelenskyy was here for a pay cheque and got a reality check,” another said, referring to the Oval Office showdown.
“I believe he wants to keep this war going, because as soon as this war is over, he’s going to be voted out,” he said.
“We’re an ocean apart. We’re doing him a big favour by supporting him.”
So much of what I heard was parroting President Trump almost word for word.
“You know, we gave him, what, $300bn? Where did that money go?”
There was no point in telling him that the true American contribution was about half that, and that it is all fully and publicly accounted for.
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Lunch was at Chubby’s, a local pizza joint where I met Tom Jaskulski, a retired federal worker, now a handyman.
“He campaigned on all these policies, and he’s fulfilling them,” Tom told me. “It seems like the world’s waking up when Donald Trump came in office.
“A lot of things are happening worldwide, not just in this country.”
Tom’s score? “10! Not because I’m wearing his hat, but a 10 because he’s doing what he says he’s going to do.
“You know, he’s rattling the hornet’s nest.”
Down the road, at the Yankee Doodle Pet Spa, Tina and her 22-year-old apprentice Molly had no regrets and were baffled that anyone could think they would.
“He’s doing what he said he was going to do and I am quite happy with him right now,” Tina said.
Our conversation turned to Ukraine. I wanted to know her thoughts on President Trump’s abruptly shifting position and near-abandonment of Kyiv.
“It’s not our war. We have enough people in this country suffering, that’s how I feel about it. I don’t think they deserve our money,” Tina said, quoting the president’s exaggerated figures for how much America had spent in Ukraine.
But then our conversation cut to the core of where America is right now: siloed worlds.
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We were discussing Elon Musk and his efforts to cut government bureaucracy.
“The social security, blowing that open with all of the people that are over 124 still getting social security,” Molly said of Musk’s claim that he had discovered social security was being paid to dead people.
“160 years old, I heard…” said Tina.
“Yeah, that’s insane,” Molly said.
I interrupted: “You know that’s been debunked? That wasn’t true. I’m worried that people are believing things that actually aren’t true. That the Trump administration is telling you stuff that is not true. What do you think?”
“I think it’s both ways,” Molly said, “I think both sides put out fake news and fake propaganda for each other.”
It was clear she didn’t know who to believe. She’d lost all trust in the legacy media. She and Tina had been drawn to social media and they’d concluded President Trump was trustworthy.
Back in Lincoln Square, a chance meeting exposed the other side of all this – deep anxiety.
“I’m a trans person so a lot of his policies have been impacting transgender people and that is just, it’s a scary time to live in,” 22-year-old Em told me.
“There’s a lot of hatred in the world right now, especially at so many groups of people. I mean, it’s really… yeah…” Em said before trailing off, face filled with anxiety and emotion.
By nightfall my journey of conversations had taken me to the quiz night at a bar and brewery in Waynesboro.
“I’ve never been more embarrassed to be American…” one woman called Jacqueline said.
Her quiz night partner, Andrew, chipped in. “I think it’s the access to information. I think we don’t go out and talk to each other.
“I think we’re on the internet all day. A lot of people are just on the internet and they’re getting news sources from their own echo chambers.”
“Things have been going downhill for a long time,” another man called Marco, at the next door table, said.
“I’m not saying Trump’s right about everything, but you know what? At least he’s trying, he’s doing something different. And I agree with what he’s doing.”
This wave of change has been profound. But to assume that those who chose this change – who chose Donald Trump – would have any regrets would be to fundamentally misunderstand America today.
The profound sentiment among everyone we spoke to who voted for him is that he is putting America first with a tangibility that they have never felt before.
It may turn out to be an illusion. But they feel no sense of that at the moment.
He is rattling the cage and so many here couldn’t be happier.
