He Voted for Trump. Then the President Called His People 'Garbage.'
A disappointed voter is emblematic of how Trump is losing minority support.
During the summer of 2024, Somali American businessman Salman Fiqy stood behind a presidential candidate as that candidate laid out their vision for America before an enormous rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
That candidate was not former Vice President Kamala Harris, who led the party’s presidential ticket last year. Instead, Fiqy had decided to throw his support behind former President Donald Trump.
Fiqy told me in an interview that some he found himself aligned with GOP values that year.
“We tend to be conservative in our way of thinking,” Fiqy told me in an interview. “And some of those conservative values are aligned with the Republican Party.”
He was also heartened by the possibility of changing the GOP from the inside.
“There was no representation within the Republican Party from the Somali community, specifically,” he said, arguing that they needed a seat at the table.
But a few weeks ago, as the news of the prosecution of a group of Somali Americans for welfare fraud went nationwide, Fiqy and other Somalis who had voted for Trump found themselves all being painted with a broad brush by the very man they had supported.
Trump called Somalis writ large “garbage,” arguing that they should be removed from the United States.
The turn of events was demoralizing for Fiqy, who was quick to condemn the fraud — he, of course, is a taxpayer himself.
“Whoever did the fraud…he deserves to be prosecuted and serve time for his crime,” he told me.
But he objected to negatively characterizing an entire ethnic community by the acts of a few. Trump’s comments depressed him.
(To add insult to injury, Trump pardoned a convicted mega-fraudster at around the same time he was insulting all Somalis.)
Fiqy told me that he still sees himself as conservative, despite Trump’s attacks.
“I continue to see things through a conservative lens. There’s many Somalis or Muslims that actually share that mindset as well,” he admitted.
But it would be hard for him to continue to support a party that demonizes him based off his ethnic origin.
“[The Republicans] actually succeeded in the 2024 campaign to attract many Muslims into their ranks as base voters, voter blocs. And I think gradually they’re losing that crowd and I think within the coming cycle…they cannot count on those voters,” he concluded.
Fiqy’s case is not an isolated one.
Recall that Trump assembled a diverse coalition in 2024, powering the GOP to decades-high support from Latinos and African Americans, as well as other minority groups. Without this minority support, Trump would never have returned to the White House.
Many liberal commentators were confused about why a man who started his presidential aspirations by accusing Mexicans of conspiring to send rapists into the United States was able to assemble such a broad coalition. But you have to remember that we live in a country with two major parties; if one screws up badly enough and alienates you, the only option is to really vote for the other one.
Minorities are Americans like everyone else, and when inflation eats into their pocketbooks, the border is out of control, and wars seem to go on without end, their votes are up for grabs; even a jerk like Trump can win them over.
It reminds me of a quote from the documentary The Square, about the Egyptian uprisings during the Arab Spring. A woman is quoted as saying she’d vote for anyone to fix the mess they were in, “even a Jew” (antisemitism is widespread in Egypt). Prejudices come secondary to putting food on the table.
Yet a year later, Trump’s minority support is now “drifting away,” in the words of one major newspaper. His approval ratings with African Americans and Latinos are in the dumps. A big part of the reason for that is that Trump has not meaningfully improved the lives of Americans. Life continues to be unaffordable for many.
Trump’s poor character and liberal use of prejudice as a political weapon could be excusable if he was accomplishing great things for Americans; but it increasingly looks as if his presidency is about accomplishing little to nothing for most of the country.
It’s like telling an offensive joke. If the joke is funny, people can commit the offense. But if you’re not funny, you’re just offensive. To many of the voters who backed him last year, Trump is now just offensive, nothing more, nothing less.