Two things . more than 20 % of those who voted for Trump were pissed off Bernie supporters and part of the Bern it down movement . These people voted for Trump specifically to spite the democratic party for cheating in their primaries , and to hopefully get them to take their voting block seriously in future elections as they have now demonstrated that the Dems cannot win without them . For that block the nastier Trump is the better . They want Trump to be so horrible that it causes a Dem rally allowing the democrats to take back control of congress in 2 years , and then get an actually respectable progressive candidate elected in 4 . They do hold out some hope that Trump will end up turning white hat , and actually start pushing progressive policies himself , but that is a best case scenario , and not needed for their ultimate plan to be successful . The other 2 groups of Trump supporters are the I always vote for anyone with an R next to their name no matter what even if they kill and eat someones baby on live television group , and the Hard core racists which actually make up a small minority of less than 10 %. Those two groups either don ' t care what Trump does since he is on their team , or actually view these policies as good , and are happy about them .