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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.
In my mind there has to be a compelling reason not to vote for Trump. There isn't. At all.
My bias is that none of these people will improve my life in any way that really matters. Certainly not any of the non-Trump candidates. But with Trump, still the answer is almost certainly no, but there is that wildcard chance that something cool happens.
When I consider that, in my lifetime, there will never be another man like Trump running for president, and that I will have ample opportunity to vote for conventional politicians like DeSantis et al., to me, there's no decision that needs to be made. It's clear as day.
That makes no sense. You don't have to vote for anyone, so the default option should be "don't vote for anyone".
Unfortunately, "none of the above" is not an option at the polls. Until that's the case, my default option is "someone will win this election, and the consequences of who wins is directly proportional to my likelihood of voting".
Yes it is. You don't have to fill every spot on a ballot, and indeed don't have to vote at all if you don't want to.
Let's see if rephrasing this helps.
If "none of the above" were allowed to win, I'd be okay with selecting that more often. If you're stuck picking which color boot is going to be on our necks - and that's the world we live in - then I'm going to pick the color that matches my hair.
If "none of the above" were allowed to win, what happens when a supreme court justice dies?
Allowing "none of the above" to win doesn't necessarily mean you leave the office unfilled. It could for instance force a new election with the candidates from the first barred from running.
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