Amid President Donald Trump’s cratering poll numbers, it’s getting easier to find supporters of his now feeling burned by their 2024 vote. Here’s a clip that went mega-viral this week, thanks to this Trump backer’s blunt, self-aware honesty.

But beyond complaints about gas prices or inflation, there’s a deeper reality taking hold in parts of the country that swung to Trump. This isn’t about marginal cost increases—it’s about entire communities getting wrecked.

One example: South Texas.

The Rio Grande Valley—a predominantly Latino region that long leaned Democratic, if with low turnout—shifted toward Trump in 2024. His law-and-order message and economic promises landed. Republicans saw it as proof that their party was making real inroads with Latino voters.

That shift also reshaped the political map. It’s the kind of region Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico now needs to win back decisively if he’s going to have any shot at flipping a Senate seat long assumed out of reach.

Now those same communities are dealing with the consequences, as Trump’s immigration crackdown has crushed the region’s largest industry: construction.

“I did vote for Mr. Trump. Deporting the criminals is a great policy,” Mario Guerrero, executive director of the South Texas Builders Association, told The New York Times. “These foundations are poured ready to go, and we can’t even start the construction on them. But we voted for the American dream. And unfortunately, right now, we’re not seeing that.”

There was never much ambiguity about what Trump meant when he promised mass deportation. He didn’t limit “criminals” to violent offenders or serious convictions. His position was explicit: Anyone in the country without legal status was a criminal and subject to removal.

That distinction mattered, because there was no controversy over deporting actual criminals. Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden never shied away from doing that.

In a region where entire industries rely on immigrant labor, that definition didn’t just target a narrow group. It put an entire workforce in the crosshairs.

But it was easy to pretend otherwise.

“I’ve supported Mr. Trump in every election that he’s been a part of,” Guerrero said. “We just never thought that this would come and affect us in the construction industry, but most importantly, affect our economy here in South Texas.”

That’s a typical conservative: He starts caring once it directly affects him, because it was fine when he thought it would just hurt someone else.

Instead, it’s hitting the workers who actually sustain the region’s economy. Job sites are stalled. Projects are delayed. Businesses are shrinking or collapsing. The ripple effects are spreading outward into the broader local economy.

But there is a political silver lining, and we saw the first signs of it in the Texas primaries two weeks ago.

“Texas Democrats more than doubled their turnout from 2024 during the primary elections on March 3 in the four counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley,” reported the Texas Tribune. “In the Valley, that energy could help spare two incumbent Democratic congressmen whose districts were redrawn to favor the GOP, and earn the state’s minority party a third congressional district as well as a statehouse district or two.”

The GOP’s 2024 gains here were treated as a realignment. Now it’s looking more like a detour.

Whether that translates into lasting political change remains to be seen. But in a region where Democratic voter participation is needed in order for the party to be competitive statewide, Trump’s malicious incompetence may have finally woken them up.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos