But for one day only, I was undercover as an avid supporter of the next president of the United States, Donald Trump.

I'm a second-year pre-law university student studying political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and French at the University of Waterloo. I was born in Galveston, Texas, so I am a natural-born American citizen. I have always been captivated by politics, especially the insanity of American politics. As a 19-year-old, the 2024 Presidential election was my first opportunity to vote—and I was going to go big or go home. 

Politically, I tend to lean center-progressive, so on a fundamental and personal level, I simply could not understand how any human being could support Donald Trump. To solve this confounding question, over my university’s reading week, I attended the rallies of both Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as part of my research for a class paper.

While at Harris’ rally, I had the honour of meeting her in person and sharing a memorable handshake! However, the focus of my research was still on Trump’s rally and dissecting the minds of his supporters.

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I attended his rally in Detroit, his second-last rally in the highly-coveted swing state of Michigan before election night. Being dressed head-to-toe in Make America Great Again (MAGA) merchandise and going undercover in an environment where there were certainly not many people who looked like me was an experience I will never forget — even if I tried to.

I settled in line around 12pm, and Trump was not scheduled to arrive until 8pm. That meant that we had at least 8 hours to spare; it was going to be a very long day. It was evident from the moment I got in line that this was no cookout. I do not think I have ever been to a place in Detroit with that many white people in my life. The diversity was virtually non-existent, a stark contrast to the Harris rally, where there were thousands of people from all different racial, gender, and religious backgrounds. 

Immediately when I passed through the security clearance, Secret Service quickly collected the five Black people in their line of sight, and brought us on stage to stand right behind Trump; it was quite a jarring experience. Looking back at the livestream on YouTube and seeing the stage behind Trump filled with people from all different backgrounds, including myself, was very strange since I was well aware that they planted all of us to make the audience appear diverse. In a way, I was a Trump diversity hire. 

My presumption walking into the venue was that I was about to enter a white supremacist cult rally - and that could not have been further from my experience. This led to my first realization: the average Trump supporter is an extremely nice and decent person (at least when they think you share the same views as them). 

I have always been hyper-aware of my race in any space I find myself in, particularly white dominated spaces but shockingly, I rarely felt that in the several hours I was in line with two thousand diehard Trump supporters. Besides one woman who wore a shirt saying “Kamala is not Black”, it was actually the local and national news reporters who interviewed me that mentioned race more than anyone else. 

In such a polarizing political climate where people refuse to talk to or listen to those with opposing views, I promised to actively work against that. I genuinely wanted to learn from Trump’s supporters. Maybe there was something they knew that I didn’t. Maybe there was something they experienced that I simply could not relate to. I asked several attendees why they voted/planned to vote for Trump, and by far, the most common answers were about the economy and immigration. This perfectly aligned with the two main talking points that Trump employed later that night at the rally. I asked attendees what specifically about the economy or immigration they took issue with and how they believed Trump would solve their grievances. 

One attendee claimed that illegal immigrants were destroying the economy. When presented with evidence from The Economist, The Atlantic, and NPR that the US economy is actually booming, the attendee called it fake news and highlighted the cost of living crisis. 

While GDP growth does not fully account for the cost of living crisis among America’s working class, the idea that the US economy is terrible is simply incorrect. 

When asked what they thought was causing the cost of living crisis in the US, the attendee answered saying, “clearly, the millions of illegals that Kamala allowed in our country are crowding the market and driving up the prices of everything from groceries to energy to housing.” 

Another interviewee claimed that illegal immigrants were crossing through the Southern border and were stealing automotive jobs in Greater Detroit. This was a very interesting accusation, especially since Detroit is over 2500 km from the closest southern border entry. 

This statement led to my second realization: many of Trump's fiercest supporters are dangerously uneducated and disinformed about the realities of the world, especially regarding the economy and immigration. 

Any amount of research would show that the leading cause of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis is the increased demand for goods affected by supply chain shortages after COVID-19. A lot of demand with little supply causes prices to increase. This is one of the most basic economic principles—one that some people clearly did not take into account.

Some people seem to have forgotten that there was a global pandemic that not only took the lives of millions, but also quite literally shut down the world. Inflation and increased cost of living is not something that only affected Americans. Every single country in the world has experienced inflation and increased costs of living. This was not an issue created by Kamala Harris (who holds zero executive power as Vice President), President Joe Biden, and definitely not undocumented immigrants. 

In fact, the US economy recovered faster than any other developed country in the world under Biden’s presidency, according to the Federal Reserve Board. 

Another major factor that has led to the cost of living crisis in the US is corporate greed. First, when overall inflation reached its highest peak after the pandemic of 9.1% (a 40-year high) and food inflation rose to a record 11.3% in June and August respectively, food prices understandably soared. However, now that food and overall inflation have fallen to below 3%, somehow food prices are still at a staggering 27% higher than they were at pre-pandemic levels. 

This comes at the same time as major food chains like Walmart and Kroger rake in record quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year profits. Several economists have attributed these numbers to a phenomenon appropriately coined “greedflation”, where multi-billion-dollar corporations take advantage of the pandemic and disproportionately increased their prices to make even more money. 

Kamala Harris had a clear plan to combat this, as one of her major campaign promises was to ban price gouging. Trump on the other hand, had no plan to combat price gouging; not even a concept of a plan.

Understanding corporate greed and advanced economics statistics and history may be quite difficult, but blaming it all on immigrants is much easier. Trump continously played up the perceived negative impacts immigrants have on the economy when in fact, undocumented immigrants pay billions upon billions in taxes to fund services that they often cannot benefit from because of their status.

As I spoke with Trump supporters, it was very difficult to get this message through to any of them because their measure of truth was not what official government statistics said. Neither was it what academics from some of the most prestigious journals in the country said. Most disappointingly and specifically, it did not matter that over half of all living Nobel prize winners in economics endorsed Kamala Harris' economic plan as better than Trump's for the US economy. Their only measure of truth was Trump himself.

Another attendee spoke about “migrant crime”, a new classification of crimes, specifically committed by immigrants. I asked this attendee if they had any statistics to show that immigrants commit more crimes than natural-born Americans, and they were unable to provide anything besides the anecdote of Jose Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant who was convicted of viciously murdering American Laken Riley. This case has been widely used by right-wing news and Trump himself to promote the supposed need for mass deportation of illegal (undocumented) immigrants.

I then asked the same attendee, who was now joined by two others, if they were aware of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)’s finding that “undocumented immigrant offending rate [is] lower than U.S.-born citizen rate” especially in the cases of violent crime like that of Jose Ibarra. They quickly dismissed what I said as “fake news”, despite me showing them the official website of the NIJ. 

Similarly, many attendees referred to the infamous “They’re eating the cats and dogs”. This is one of many lies that Trump debuted on live national television during his Presidential Debate with VP Harris, despite the National City of Springfield, Ohio, and the National Security Council spokesman repeatedly calling these claims baseless. 

This led to my third realization: while I do not believe the average Trump supporter is a racist or horrible person, it is undeniable that the Former President has dangerously disinformed them. It did not matter what the City of Springfield said. It did not matter what scientists said. It did not matter what doctors said. The only determiner of fact was whether Trump said it was or not. 

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There is little debate about Trump being an extremely talented and charismatic communicator. Whether we like the way he speaks or not, he has a message and he is able to connect with tens of millions of people using that message. This led to my final, and most concerning realization: Donald Trump is extremely talented in taking citizens’ preexisting grievances and blaming already marginalized groups for their hardships.

When Trump spoke about the economy, he displayed AI-generated images on the ginormous screens behind him depicting immigrants stealing jobs. When he spoke about crime, there were other AI-generated images of immigrants who appeared to be in gangs running through alleyways. The fear-mongering and shifting of blame to some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people in the US was very intentional. This made him very appealing to uneducated or disinformed people, because they thought he could be the solution to all their problems despite his history as president and what virtually any expert had to say on numerous topics. 

This, I believe, can explain in part why Trump won an astounding near 70% of white voters without a college degree, which make up 40% of the entire electorate. When someone lacks the critical thinking, research, and problem-solving skills that can be learned in an advanced education setting like a college or university, they are much more vulnerable to believe and vote based on disinformation. This is why Trump won — he was able to effectively tap into uneducated and/or disinformed Americans’ fears, and provide very simple and digestible “solutions” for their problems. 

At the night's end, I left the rally with many thoughts and feelings. Mainly, I was disheartened and sad to see that it was so easy for him to lie to millions of people, be a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and a compulsive liar and still win in a landslide, including for the first time, the popular vote - by a lot.

Looking ahead into (Project) 2025, I feel extremely worried for the country I was born in. This worry is exacerbated by the bizarre cabinet picks that Trump has made. 

The madness runs deep in the second Trump administration with nominees like prospective Attorney General Matt Gaetz, future Department of “Government Efficiency” leader Elon Musk, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) head RFK Jr., and the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the one and only Dr. Oz. And most recently the appointment of professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon as education secretary.

It is frankly mortifying that someone who was investigated by the Department of Justice for alleged child sex trafficking was tapped to lead that same institution. (Matt Gaetz has since withdrawn his name from consideration after it was revealed there was an alleged second encounter between him and a 17-year-old in 2017).

It is also quite jarring that someone (RFK Jr.) who once said, “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and vaccines can cause autism, will now run the HHS. Additionally, despite Trump saying on numerous occasions that he has no part in the infamous Project 2025, and does not know the people who wrote it, his FCC Chair nominee is the author of the FCC chapter of Project 2025. The lies simply never stop. 

Trump’s connection to Project 2025 and its horrific policy plans was long denied, but it is becoming more and more apparent that not only was he connected to the people who wrote it, but he is actively appointing people to make that psychotic dream a reality. Coming from Texas, I know many people who voted for Trump, and in fact one of them called me after the FCC appointment to inform me of their regretfulness of voting for him. For some reason, despite every bright red flag showing otherwise, they believed that Harris and the Democrats’ mentions of Project 2025 were nothing more than fear-mongering. Now they have finally realized that it was, in fact, the truth — but it is now far too late. 

Having won the majority in both the House and Senate and a supermajority in the Supreme Court that gave him immunity for any “official” presidential acts, there will be little to no checks or balances to limit Trump’s power. This will make it very easy for him and his administration to implement many of his promises, which include ill-planned tariffs and “the biggest mass deportation in American history.” 

Going into four more years of Trump as the most powerful person on Earth, all I can say is “God bless America”; they’ll need it.