Democrats, Republicans discuss Trump’s second term
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
President-elect Donald J. Trump will be sworn in during an inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20. As that day draws near, the Sun spoke to local leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties about the ceremony.
McKinley County Republican Party Chair Pablo Martinez and the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s Communications Director Daniel Garcia both reflected on the past eight years and the political divide that has occurred. They also took time to predict what the next four years of Trump’s second term could look like.
THE LOCAL RECEPTION OF TRUMP
Martinez didn’t initially support Trump when he first announced he was running for president in the 2016 election. He voted for Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, in the 2016 primary.
But when he saw Trump give his inauguration speech, Martinez started to get on board with the TV star-turned-politician.
“When Trump won and gave his inaugural speech, all that I heard leading up to him getting into office was very in key with what I believed in,” Martinez said. “He was doing everything he said he was going to do, so it was really refreshing and eye opening. Of course I was a supporter after that.”
Martinez has supported Trump ever since then; despite any hate he may have received. He moved back home to Gallup in 2020 and was instantly surprised by the reactions people had toward Trump supporters.
He said that Trump signs were often torn down in Gallup leading up to the 2020 election.
“In 2020 it was awful. If you put a [Trump sign] up, it would be torn down within hours,” he said. “You couldn’t walk around with a MAGA hat, you couldn’t have a Trump shirt on. People would just yell at you. It was awful.”
When he put up a 4×8 sign in his front yard, he knew he would need to reinforce it, so it didn’t get stolen. He nailed 2×4 wooden planks to the back of the sign and added metal stripping to it so that people couldn’t rip it out of the ground.
As an extra precaution, he doused it with a moose urine scent that hunters often use to draw the animals into their hunting area. It is a pungent scent.
But it proved useful one summer night around 4:30 pm. Martinez had also set up a trail cam, so he could see when someone was messing with his sign, and he would get alerts to his phone.
Suddenly, three women who Martinez estimated were in their 50s or 60s, approached the sign. But they didn’t accomplish their supposed mission of destroying the sign.
“They realized they couldn’t [tear the sign down], and then they realized their hands were doused in this moose urine scent,” Martinez said. “They just looked at each other and walked off shaking their heads. So, it worked.”
That was 2020. Martinez said the public’s viewpoint on Trump changed dramatically over the next four years.
In preparation for the 2024 election, the McKinley County Republican Party set up a booth for five weeks at the Gallup Flea Market, which is held on Saturdays. During the warmer months, about 10,000 people visit the market each Saturday, with a majority of them being Navajo.
Martinez said many people who attended the flea market were extremely receptive to what he and his fellow Republicans shared. He said many people purchased their merchandise, including MAGA and Trump hats, and then placed them on their heads and walked around the market wearing them.
“We sold out of everything every week,” he said.
Martinez said the Democrat booth, which was right behind them, didn’t fare as well. Not as many people reportedly stopped by, and they left with most of their merchandise still.
SHIFT IN THE AIR
So, what changed from 2020 to 2024? Martinez said he thinks people have gotten tired of the Democrats.
“I think it was just all of the bad policies that the Biden administration put out,” he said. “The border situation, the economy, the inflation. When prices fluctuate even a tiny bit it really affects people here on the reservation. I know for a fact they were feeling that.”
Garcia sees things a little differently. He believes that people who supported Trump during the 2024 election played a large role in his win.
“There’s a lot more influence by billionaires and conservative influences in the Trump administration than there has been previously, or in government ever,” Garcia said. “That’s really not good for the American people when it looks like uber billionaires like Elon Musk have such a say in the government and policy, both foreign and domestic.”
As for the political divide in the country, Garcia puts the blame heavily on Trump.
“There’s no doubt about it that Trump is personally responsible for the political divide in America,” he said. “On the campaign trail he said he would go after political opponents. So that in and of itself indicates a very combative tone. He was not civil on the campaign trail, and he’s still not civil.”
An October SNF/Agora poll showed that half of the people who were interviewed believed that members of the opposing party aren’t just wrong for politics—they’re «downright evil.”
«Vilifying our political opponents is a signal that we consider them to be enemies instead of opponents,» Lilliana Mason, a Johns Hopkins University political science professor who studies political violence and polarization, said in a press release from the university. «The work of governing a democracy requires compromise and mutual respect. These sentiments make that respect nearly impossible, which threatens the health of democracy.»
WHAT WILL THE NEXT FOUR YEARS LOOK LIKE?
Garcia said he expects more elitist behavior and policies from Trump’s second term.
“What I think we can expect based on Trump’s first term and his promises on the campaign trail is definitely more tax cuts for the wealthy, conservative influencers and billionaires having more say in the government, and just all around more immature behavior,” he said.
He said he believes that Trump and his associates are making government more exclusionary than inclusionary and more inaccessible to regular working people.
Despite this, Garcia said New Mexico Democrats will continue to try to work with rather than against Republicans.
“The people we’ve elected in office will of course focus on governing, and when that means working with Republicans of course our elected officials at every level of government will do what’s best for New Mexicans,” he said.
Martinez disagreed with that statement, saying that he predicts Trump will face many roadblocks, especially during his first couple months as President. He believes that Trump’s opponents will create a chaotic environment that will prevent Trump from achieving anything on his to-do list.
But Martinez doesn’t solely blame the Democrats for this. He puts the majority of the blame on the “Deep State.” People who believe in the “Deep State” have an idea that the government is run by secret and unauthorized networks of power which operate independently of the country’s political leadership. The Deep State has their own agenda and goals, and Martinez said that Trump being President is not a part of that plan; hence the multiple assassination attempts against him.
Despite these potential roadblocks, Martinez hopes that Trump will complete a large majority of the items on his to-do list.
The tense situation between Russia and Ukraine is on top of both Martinez’s and Trump’s minds.
The two countries have been at war for a decade, and Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine only heightened the tense situation. It’s the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II and has resulted in a refugee crisis and tens of thousands of deaths.
Martinez said he hopes Trump can diffuse the situation before it gets any worse. He said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is waiting to make any more moves until Trump is in office and the two leaders can talk.
“I pray and hope that he’s successful, because if not, it could be literally the end of civilization because Russia is going to have to defend themselves,” Martinez said. “I think they’ve been holding back big time.”
Another concern is the economy. One dollar in 2016 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.31 at the beginning of 2025, an increase of $0.31 over nine years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.09% per year between 2016 and 2025, producing a cumulative price increase of 31.45%.
“Our economy is worse than a bubble, it’s worse than a Ponzi scheme,” Martinez said. “They just keep printing money, and at some point, that can’t work anymore. At some point our economy will collapse and our dollar won’t be worth anything anymore. I don’t know how Trump’s even going to deal with that.”
Finally, Martinez brought up the issue of immigration and border control. He said that there is now a large population immigrants living in Gallup. He admitted that he didn’t know if they were here illegally or not.
“I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong, but you can see people walking the streets that you’ve never seen walking the streets here before, people you can tell aren’t from this country are walking the streets of Gallup,” Martinez said. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s a different thing, and it’s eye opening. Some people would consider it a bad thing.”
Martinez said he is concerned about the country’s ability to keep up with the amount of people who are living here illegally — whether they crossed a border or let their visas expire.
“We need to start deporting these people, or our country will start to fall. We cannot support all these people financially any longer,” Martinez said. “… We’d have all these people who do not know the rule of law here, who don’t even speak the language, who are not going to assimilate in any fashion, roaming our cities, doing whatever it takes to support them and their families. I believe that that’s going to create chaos there.”
He said he hopes Trump does something about the border control problem, although he did acknowledge that deporting all the people who are currently living in the U.S. illegally would take a long time.
No matter what happens, Martinez said it’s going to be an interesting and perhaps even challenging period for the country.
“Just because Trump won doesn’t mean we can let off the gas,” he said. “Now is the time to seize the opportunity we have. We actually have someone in there who could help us.”
