Young Republican beats himself up for voting Trump: 'I spent years defending him!'

One of the younger voters who helped propel President Donald Trump to a second term in the White House expressed regret for his choice.

The 79-year-old president received 39 percent of the vote share among 18-29-year-olds – including 54 percent from young men – but one of those voters published a column for the Cincinnati Enquirer lamenting that Trump has not carried through on his campaign promises.

"Running for office and governing are two very different things," wrote Thomas Maddox, a senior at the University of Cincinnati. "Campaigns reward spectacle and confrontation. The presidency requires discipline, restraint, and a willingness to rise above it."

"The office itself is supposed to be larger than the person holding it," he added. "It’s not a brand to expand or defend. It’s a stewardship of something that belongs to the country. A president is supposed to be the leader of the entire nation."

Maddox wrote that Trump had squandered his support on immigration and border security by unleashing "chaotic" enforcement focused "more by spectacle than strategy," and he faulted Trump for trying to govern through executive order rather than building support for his proposals and getting them passed by Congress.

"As a young Republican who voted for Trump − even after being disappointed by his behavior in 2021 − I spent years defending him!" Maddox wrote. "I defended him in conversations, debates, and writing because I believed the larger project he represented was bigger than the controversies surrounding him."

"But over time, it has become harder to ignore a simple truth: Many of the voters who stood up for Trump now feel he no longer stands up for them," he added.

Trump ran as an outsider who would break and reform the system, but Maddox said he barely recognizes the candidate he backed.

"The voters who stood up for Trump expected him to stand up for the country," Maddox wrote. "Too often now, it feels like he only stands up for himself."