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What is the steelman for voting for Trump in the primaries?
He's not a true outsider anymore. He's not an unknown quantity. We know his temperament. We know his governance style. What does he provide over Desantis/Haley/Ramaswamy? He didn't build the wall the first time, why would he do it now?
I have some ideas, but they're all terrible once you think about them for ten seconds. I am willing to believe that the median voter is unable to think clearly for ten seconds before being hijacked by monkey-brain, but I'd like to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.
1. Personal Loyalty: This is close to the Richard Hanania theory. Personal loyalty would make sense if Trump was loyal in turn to his supporters, but he isn't. How many of his lawyers have gone to jail? How many orange-blooded Trump fans lost their jobs or got arrested for believing in him too hard on January 6? He could have pardoned these people, but he didn't. Orange Man good because Orange Man good.
2. Perceived Injustice: Yes, Trump has been treated unfairly by the media and the Washington establishment. Lots of people have been. I can understand why this would be seen as a necessary condition (e.g. "nobody liked by the 'elites' could ever be a good president"), but why would this be a sufficient condition? Surely electability and general competence matter more than an extra standard-deviation worth of grievances against the media.
3. Hatred: I'm not talking about "Hate™". I'm talking about a genuine desire to see one's political enemies suffer. It's not even clear to me that Trump would be better at this than other Republican candidates, but I feel I would be missing something if I didn't put it on the list.
It would be some feat to pardon people accused of committing a crime after he wasn't president anymore, are we talking time travel or just precognition here?
Personally I'm just sitting back and watching the circus for entertainment value (which I can do as a non-American, sorry USAians), though I think there must be some miracle in operation this time round because Snopes of all places fact-checked a Trump story (that he had said something which had been misrepresented) and deemed it false! What wonder is this? A favourable decision for Orange Man Bad by Snopes? Keep an eye out for three headed calves and talking dogs!
He was President up until January 20.
It's a nice technical point, isn't it? He was technically president, but he had been beaten in the election. More informed people can tell me if he was still able to issue pardons while the clock on his term was running out. Biden was president-elect and inaugurated on January 21st, so you're saying Trump could have exercised full presidential powers right up until the very last minute?
I vaguely remember that he wasn't allowed to talk after Jan 6th. He lost Twitter, I don't remember any press conferences, there was the impeachment, but I don't think he was permitted to talk to the public or sign anything.
Legally he should have been able to issue pardons up until his last day, that is a power the president has. But I don't know if he was allowed near a pen.
He was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Donald_Trump_presidency_(2020_Q4–January_2021)
The start of that article is a shitshow, but the timeline table is relatively solid. He’s very quiet for a couple days, then
I elided a bunch of actions by his cabinet and by Congress. He was also making speeches and TV appearances in this window.
Thank you for the correction, like I said it was a vague memory.
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