What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Trump has unique vulnerabilities to be sure. I doubt we have ever in our lifetimes seen such a polarizing figure.

But....but...but....all those things were true in 2016 and he won. They were true in 2020 (at which point voters knew what an awful president he was) and he got 74m votes.

So we shouldn't be complacent or dismissive. And he's running against Biden, who has terrible, indeed historically awful, favourability ratings and indeed faces his owns unique challenges. Right now, the election is 50/50 (if you want to bet on it, you can back Trump at evens and Biden at 9/4, so the betting markets have a clear opinion). So Trump can definitely win - we shouldn't let our distaste for him blind us to that.

I don't think the legalities actually matter (and given the terrible track record of Trump's lawyers to date, I have little doubt he will lose at the SC). The politics is what actually matters i.e. delaying the trial until after the election.

What poster here has dismissed Trump's winning? I don't recall anyone. However, what people rightly point out is that Trump has been effectively campaigning for the last 3 years and yet still faces a not insignificant portion of his party (40% in the last primary) that doesn't want him.

Of course, the vast majority of those will vote for him as the GOP nominee, but it raises the question as to how he is going to win over independents, and those who opted to vote for Biden last time when he couldn't convince his party.

And yes, Trump got 74m votes, but lost by something like 7m. What has he done to get those voters on his side? Nothing. The only play they seem to have is that Biden is terrible. But al that does it then get people to try to work out which is the least bad option.

And any independent or critical thinker can see that whatever faults Biden may have, they are nothing compared to the faults that Trump has.

And therein lies the real problem for Trump. He won in 2016 based largely on a desire for something new (which he isn't anymore) and a huge amount of anti-HC sentiment. While Biden may not be popular, he is not the divisive figure that HC was. In fact, Trump has now taken on that mantle.

The recent results seem to suggest that the polls are overestimating the support for Trump.

Yeah, it certainly seems that way. I can't think of a peaceful way that the pandora's box of Trumpism can be closed in a short space of time. People say that MAGA are only a minority of the overall party base, and this could well be true, but if it is true, then they've done an absolutely bang-up job of cowing the rest of the party into submission.

If that were true he would be winning primaries with 90%+ and he's nowhere close to managing that.

Always good craic when Michael Che starts making jokes at Josts expense.

hope you didn't have to use a full box of Kleenex while writing that one handed

The ones to be worried about are the people who know full well it wasn't stolen, but still faithfully parrot the lie.

They may be morally worse, but anyone saying the election was stolen and is acting on that basis is bad enough.

I was listening to the Hacks on Tap podcast this morning and they had Sarah Longwell who is a political strategist.

She was saying what Haley does after she drops out could have a massive impact in November.

If she doesnt endorse Trump it really gives her supporters genuine reason not to vote for him but if she does endorse him (more than likely as she said she would in the past) then her supporters will probably all come back to him even though many stated they wouldnt vote for him over the last few weeks.

To think about this another way - has there ever been a primary where the loser did not row in behind the winner? Haley is a politician, she will do the political thing.

(ironically, probably the only candidate who would be an exception to this would be Trump - if he lost, which he won't, but imagine the scenes if he did)

I would guess 'all of them' is the answer to that question.

But how many elected GOP officials have been willing to sacrifice their career on the altar of staking out a moral position against Trump? Liz Cheney and I guess you could argue Mitt Romney...and a few more who just quietly retired (remember Jeff Flake for example).

But anyone who wanted to continue to be a force in politics bowed the knee to Trump. That's the reality, whatever they might think or say in private.