Alabama Trump voter speaks at DNC, endorses Kamala Harris

[aubiefifty 18,260]

 

al.com

 

Alabama Trump voter speaks at DNC, endorses Kamala Harris

Updated: Aug. 22, 2024, 11:45 a.m.|Published: Aug. 21, 2024, 9:50 p.m.

5–6 minutes

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Kyle Sweetser (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Chip Somodevilla

CHICAGO - The Democratic National Convention heard from an unlikely speaker this week: a lifelong Alabama Republican.

Kyle Sweetser, a former President Donald Trump voter from Mobile told the convention Tuesday night he will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, despite voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

“In 2016, I was excited to vote for Trump,” Sweetser told AL.com a day after his convention speech. “People in Mobile, people down in Alabama, we’re kind of forgotten … [Trump] seemed like a change of pace.”

Throughout the first Trump term Sweetser noticed “increasingly weird behavior” from the president. In 2018, Trump’s tariffs hurt construction workers like him by increasing costs, he said.

Regardless, Sweetser “held his nose” in 2020. He donated to and voted for the former president in the election. He said he thought that the fallout of the election, unfounded voter fraud claims and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol meant that Trump would not run again in 2024.

As Sweetser began taking issue with the behavior of the former president, he paid more attention to his “Make America Great Again” base. He noticed similarities between Russian disinformation amid the invasion of Ukraine and the messaging of “MAGA influencers,” he said.

“I decided from that point, ‘If this guy runs again, I’m going to vote Democrat for the first time in my life,’” Sweetser said. “So that’s when I started speaking out against Trump.”

In his view, Trump’s record on fiscal responsibility, his insistence on expanding tariffs and his isolationist approach to international politics are not conservative. The former president is “not a law and order president,” especially not compared to the Biden-Harris administration.

Sweetser, who told AL.com that he is still Republican and supported former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley since the early stages of the Republican Primary, said he believes Trump is bad for the Republican Party.

After it became clear that Haley would not receive the nomination, Sweetser was prepared to vote for President Joe Biden. He knew there was a possibility that Harris could replace Biden, as it was a possibility that Haley spoke about frequently.

Sweetser began volunteering with groups including Republican Voters Against Trump, Republicans for Harris and Haley Voters for Harris. He supported the groups’ efforts to unify by getting “rid of the extremism” of Trump.

“As I was doing this, I learned about how MAGA operates, how they harass and intimidate and try to silence other Republicans to speak out against their record in a coordinated effort,” Sweetser said. “I found it weird that they spend more effort going after other Republicans than they do after Democrats.”

While speaking out against Trump, Sweetser said he and his family were subject to online abuse, a doxing incident and death threats from Trump-aligned trolls and accounts.

“It’s insane when you speak out against Trump as a Republican,” he said. “What comes after you is mind-boggling.”

Seeing Trump-endorsed Republican candidates up and down the ballot lose critical elections proved to Sweetser that the former president was making his party lose power. In 2024, the Democratic platform is more conservative than the Republican on issues including the economy and crime, he said.

“As far as living a conservative lifestyle, I’m one of the most conservative people you could know,” Sweetser said. “Our kids are homeschooled … I have more guns than family members, and I’m still backing Kamala Harris out of principle.”

Echoing his DNC remarks, Sweetser emphasized his support for Harris’ presidential campaign in efforts to return to the American values he holds. He hopes that the GOP can be “reformed” into a party without MAGA sentiment.

“Trump brings out the worst in people, he stirs people up,” Sweetser said.

Griffin Uribe Brown, a junior from Chicago studying magazine, news and digital journalism and policy studies, is reporting for AL.com during the Democratic National Convention. He is covering the DNC as part of a program with Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

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[homersapien 12,248]

Good for him. That takes courage.

[AURex 2,261]

IMO, it really will not make any difference in the Electoral College vote, since Trump will surely carry Alabama. But I admire Republicans like Sweetser from Alabama and the former Georgia Lt Governor and the former Trump spokeswoman for stepping forward to denounce this grifter, fraudster, felon.