A Pennsylvania man’s reasoning behind his vote for Donald Trump has gone viral and left social media users aghast.
The man’s quote was included in an article by The Philadelphia Inquirer that explored how the president-elect, buoyed by voters’ economic anxieties, won Pennsylvania despite being called a fascist.
The excerpt that went viral on social media read:
In Scranton on Wednesday, Matt Wolfson, a 45-year-old former construction worker, looked around at poverty in the Rust Belt city and thought the nation needed a change in leadership.
Wolfson said he didn’t love the dictatorial aspect of Trump’s personality, but thought it could help keep the country out of wars and maybe bring peace to some other conflicts, including in Ukraine.
“He’s good and bad. People say he’s a dictator. I believe that. I consider him like Hitler,” Wolfson said. “But I voted for the man.”
During the campaign, Trump was compared to Adolf Hitler, who started World War II by invading Poland. Trump used similar rhetoric to that of the Nazi dictator, calling opponents “vermin” and claiming that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Trump’s own former chief of staff, John Kelly, came forward in the final stretch of the campaign to say that Trump praised Hitler to him more than once. He also warned Trump would govern like a dictator.
Still, voters, citing the economy and cost of living as top concerns, chose to return him to the White House. (Economists have said Trump’s proposals could actually raise prices for consumers.)
Social media users, stunned by the Pennsylvania man’s quote, shared their takes.
“The quote is insane, but it’s not at all atypical,” ex-Rep. Joe Walsh (Ill.), who left the Republican Party in 2020, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’ve heard so many variations of this very same quote this past year from so many people who intended to and/or did vote for him.”
The Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis, who monitors Russian propaganda, said the passage was “MAGA in a nutshell.”
See those reactions and others below.