A feminist, a historian, a DJ, a vegan, a Ukrainian-American, a chef and an accountant. All of these people have one thing in common — they voted for U.S. President Donald Trump, and they regret it.
"I voted for you. Where are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon & Saudi Arabia on your ban? We don't care about your investments!," tweeted Twitter user Kristie.
"@realDonaldTrump U lying sack of shit. I voted 4 u. Hiring freeze a the VA? My daddy needs care. You promised to help," tweeted another user named Bobby.
Both tweets were shared by "Trump Regrets," a Twitter account that has been retweeting the stories of angry Americans.
The account is run by Erica Baguma, a Halifax university student who told The Huffington Post Canada with a laugh that she definitely wouldn't have voted for Trump.
Baguma came up with the concept for the account after she heard Trump wouldn't be pursuing any charges against Hillary Clinton — something he had made a lot of noise about on the campaign trail.
"I was curious how his base felt about that," Baguma said.
What she found was a lot of people who felt betrayed. Not just about Clinton, but about a lot of Trump's actions — including some stuff he had said he would do during his campaign.
One of Trump's big promises was that he intended to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
"A lot of people thought that a lot of what he was saying was just rhetoric, you know, trying to fire people up but didn’t actually expect him to follow through."
But, after Trump signed an executive order to begin construction, one voter tweeted, "please rethink the wall, i voted for you but the wall I dont agree with, please appeal to the needs of the greater Nation."
"I’ve definitely found that a lot of his voters really weren’t informed on his positions on a lot of things. A lot of them seemed to be really single-issue voters, so they were surprised by his major campaign pledges," Baguma explained.
"A lot of people thought that a lot of what he was saying was just rhetoric, you know, trying to fire people up but didn’t actually expect him to follow through."
She says having the account and reading people's perspectives has warmed her to Trump supporters. She's been surprised by two things: how diverse Trump voters are, and how many of them were well-intentioned.
She says the tweets might hold some insight for Canadian voters.
"It’s always important to do your homework, to understand and to stay informed. It’s easy for us to kind of laugh and say we could never elect somebody like Trump, but we definitely could if we aren’t careful."
The social anthropology student says there's also a big lesson she's learned from the account that she can relate back to her studies.
"You can't really generalize a culture, ever. A culture isn't homogenous, and that's something I've definitely been learning is that there are so many nuances in a population," Baguma explained.
She didn't expect the account would gain so much attention, but once she saw it was bringing some people comfort she decided to keep it up.
"I’ll probably keep going as long as people are interested and people are still regretting," she said.
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