'I've been bitter': MAGA voter abandons GOP after being among first fired by Trump
A Republican voter in Northern Virginia who backed President Donald Trump since 2016 says she's finished with the GOP, the Huffington Post reported.
The story highlighted a number of Trump voters who regretted their votes for a whole host of reasons, from his mismanagement of the pandemic in 2020, to the 2019 Uvalde school shooting in Texas, to one voter who came to see his presidency as an affront to Christian values.
But a 58-year-old voter identified as Denise in Virginia had a personal reason for the turnabout: Trump, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, eliminated her veteran healthcare position.
"Two days after I celebrated him taking office in 2025, he cut my position within the federal government," said Denise. "I am a 21-year federal employee who took a position last year in the Office of Equity Assurance at the VA (Veterans Affairs). In that capacity, we were working to assist underserved veteran populations within the U.S. and its territories: rural and tribal veterans, women veterans, minorities, senior veterans, homeless vets. We were working to figure out what disparities these groups face because of where they live, and trying to offer them a more equal chance at obtaining VA benefits."
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Unfortunately, Denise said, this was classified as a "diversity, equity, and inclusion" position, "and Trump signed an executive order following his inauguration which eliminated all DEI offices within the federal government. His EO technically ended our positions, but because of our tenure, veterans status, longevity, and performance status within VA, our senior leadership was planning to reassign each of us to other areas of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) ― but Elon Musk and DOGE canceled those reassignment plans and terminated us via Reduction in Force (RIF)."
"I’ve been pretty bitter ever since," Denise added. "I will be moving towards becoming an Independent from now on."
Denise's story is hardly unique — a number of other Trump voters working within the federal government have ended up fired as a result of Trump's policies and come forward to tell their stories, including a disabled veteran who provided IT services for the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and an IRS agent who warned the president is "destroying people's lives."
Even some outspoken Trump-supporting celebrities have grown uncomfortable with this situation; in February, "Shazam!" lead actor Zachary Levi, a longtime MAGA booster, begged the president on Fox News to show some restraint with the layoffs: “There are a lot of people that are very afraid right now because there are truly good working people that work for the government, that are getting lost in the cracks.”