When he announced his running prior to 2016, I thought it was a joke.
The apprentice guy? I was born in 92 and really just hardly aware of him except for the apprentice, of which I only watched a few of the celebrity apprentice episodes because it had celebrities on that I liked such as Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette.
So I didn't really care for Trump for two reasons.
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I associated him with reality TV and I did and still do despise reality TV. I saw it and still see it as one of those things that decayed the American culture.
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When he was the subject of a comedy central roast around the time he announced he was running, he didn't seem like he could take a joke.
I've since seen that Trump's not the type of guy who does big hearty showy laughs. If he's amused by something he'll just sort of smile. But at the time, I didn't think he had a sense of humor about himself, and I've always been someone who's wary of people who can't take jokes about themselves.
But what changed for me officially was when I saw a video of his, one of his campaign videos addressing the problem of political correctness in the culture and stifling free speech.
That alone was enough to ensure I was behind him 100%. I never saw any other "conservative" politician boldly address this issue or even address it at all really.
Mostly it was just us on the internet fighting the culture war who bothered to address and fight political correctness. Where was John McCain's take down of PC culture? Where was Mitt Romney's takedown of PC culture? But here, the guy who I thought was just doing this for attention as a reality TV guy, is the only one to flat-out say, political correctness is a problem and needs to be addressed.
So that video made me a Trump supporter. Then seeing how the mainstream media treated the man made me see things even clearer.
Probably about a month into his first term. My stance on him basically went something like this:
He announces he is running
"What the fuck? Again? And uh...that was kind of spicy for an opening statement. Still leaning toward Cruz though."
He starts winning primaries
"Wat? Guys, did we forget he was a Democrat for most of his life? This is clearly a bit and he is going to turn it into another business venture when he is done."
wins the primary
"Are you fucking kidding me you dumbasses?!"
election day
"...sigh...Well, at least he is better than Hillary..."votes Trump
he wins
"Wow, that worked?"
He starts doing the things he said he would do
"Wait, he was serious?!"
starts doing even more of his promises, including the stuff people said you could never do
"...I changed my mind...dons full gearMAGA ME HARDER! I AM NOT TIRED OF WINNING!!"
And as we have seen more of the establishment revealing itself, I got more and more approval of him, and now in his second term with him going absolutely balls to the wall I am happier than I have ever been.