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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.
For having an unironically decent track record as president ? (bad human, worse husband, terrible role model.....solid track record)
The way I see it, Trump doesn't give a fuck. Ramaswamy, DeSantis and especially Haley care too about much about their career after politics. This means they are more or less beholden to the whims of the American elite. Also, after seeing them debate, I do not think Haley has any change of victory. DeSantis has sounded more and more bitchy as the campaign has lost momentum and Ramaswamy is a little too early to the game. US is not there yet, racially.
So as much as Trump is not the ideal candidate to face
TrumpBiden, he is the only one who might win and maintain his anti-establishment status. Yeah, a white Ramaswamy or a less whiny DeSantis would have had a better chance. But, that's not on offer.edit: Note that I am talking about his presidency rather than the Republican house. A republican house + senate have shown themselves to be pretty incompetent. However, they don't have much to do with the President.
If you post the argument you made to Reddit you will get a lot of people wandering if you are being serious.
Looking back at his track record I believe he did a great job. He got things right I didn’t even think about then like immigration and China and both of those aged well. He also yelled at Powell in 2018 about hiking rates and for that environment (inflation sub 2%) Trump was absolutely correct Powell was making a mistake.
I do take issue with you calling him a bad husband. He did the most important thing a husband can do which is procreate and successfully raise functioning children.
Anyone who gets married 3x isn't a good husband, and I'd be shocked if him and Melania have anything I'd consider a good relationship.
Would a women rather have a best friend as a husband or one who produced attractive, well-educated , healthy children?
If you noticed in my prior comment I said nothing about his relationship with her. Evolutionary biology I would think says my model is the better husband.
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As an absolute statement this can't be right. The range of reasonable exceptions, from "the wife soon contracted a terminal disease" to "the wife turned out to be untrustworthy" is wide enough that there must be men who have had awful luck from it twice.
As a specific case, though, things like "the wife didn't get along with the mistress" or "the hooker turned out to be untrustworthy" are not in that range.
This reminds me of the shopping cart debate in which people point out a bar, resting on the floor, to be considered a functioning member of society. And then many heavily "disabled" mothers explain why their corner case makes it OK.
Statistically, I don't see the case for any double divorcee to be a good husband, and Trump's inadequacy in the EQ department is both one of his strengths and one of the 100 nails in the coffin for his quality on that front.
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Who cares, really? More American money spent on middle eastern bullshit.
Low interest rates and high deficits causing an artificial boom.
That was bad, actually.
That's not true, he initially pushed lockdowns and tried to bully the governor of Georgia into not reopening.
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