The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

Back in 2016, Brian Pannebecker was the first Donald Trump fan I had ever met. The wiry, energetic Michigan autoworker, whose Midwest twang sounded like home to me, insisted he would stick with his political idol “through thick and thin”. That’s not quite how things worked out. 

As court cases and indictments against the former president began to multiply last year, Pannebecker — like many Midwest Trump supporters I have interviewed — wobbled. He wanted the Trump message, but not the mess. Founder of Autoworkers for Trump, he renamed the group “Trump supporters for Vivek” (Ramaswamy) because the then-hopeful — who has since dropped out of the presidential race — “was like a clone of Donald Trump but without all the baggage”.