# How can Donald Trump win at this point? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump, kamala-harris\ **Created:** [August 6, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351 "2024-08-06T21:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/241 "2024-08-07T21:35:14Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > This is a horrifying idea in which you legitimize using the Department of Justice to go after political rivals. I think Trump is a unique threat and it would be fair and fine to make a deal with him that gets rid of him from the political scene. Further, it wouldn’t be the DOJ going after political rivals; it would be Trump himself offering to end his taking of America hostage in exchange for leniency. > [@](#): > > This is exactly the idea I would expect to come from Trump’s swamp denizens (hello, Mr. Scaramucci!) but that no right thinking person should support. Scaramucci is not the first person I’ve heard this kind of thing from. Former WH Correspondent Brian Karem was making a similar suggestion a few months ago. > [@](#): > > Scaramucchi is an idiot who couldn’t last a week even among the incompetents of the Trump administration. Who cares what he thinks? I don’t think he’s my favorite person in the world, but he comes across to me as funny, charming, and insightful, as well as genuinely contrite about his former service to Trump. He also doesn’t seem to me like an “idiot.” ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/242 "2024-08-07T21:40:07Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ll tell you what will help him win is this ridiculous hyperbole of continuing to call every Republican presidential candidate going back to at least George W of being a literal Nazi or fascist. Demonizing approximately half the country is a risky strategy for the long term. Is it hyperbole to call Trump a fascist? I think not. I do not hear people say that about Reagan (OK, maybe the Dead Kennedys said something along those lines) or George Sr. Then we have Dubya who, if not a fascist, was certainly a top 5 worst president. So basically two of the worst presidents and the last two Republicans. Excoriating them hardly seems excessive. Also, excoriating them is not to demonize half the country. MAGAs _are_ fucking nazis, and they are maybe 30% of the country. But I agree in that, were I a politician, I would not focus on the followers but on the leader. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/243 "2024-08-07T21:50:25Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Is it hyperbole to call Trump a fascist? I think not. A little. trump is a Right Wing Populist, like Boris Johnson or Netanyahu . However, Hitler and Mussolini also started as RW Populists. So a “fascist wannabe” or “fascist -light” would be more correct. It is looking at full fascist is where trump wants to go. Reagan was also a RW populist, but clearly never went full fascist. Dubya was a clown being led by his Veep. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/244 "2024-08-07T22:45:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It is looking at full fascist is where trump wants to go. I don’t disagree with your post. I really think that Trump wants to be a Hindenburg to a TBD Hitler. He wants to play this honored figure but not have to do anything. But Miller, Bannon, and Gorka really want to implement the Third Reich. Vance would be happy to be Heydrich or Eichman; he’s got the evil in his eyes. He’d be killing people (yes, I mean that literally). Trump is too intellectually lazy to be a real fascist. But I think it’s fair to call him one, since he’d have no objection to fascism being implemented in his name. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/245 "2024-08-07T23:00:54Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ll tell you what will help him win is this ridiculous hyperbole of continuing to call every Republican presidential candidate going back to at least George W of being a literal Nazi or fascist. Demonizing approximately half the country is a risky strategy for the long term. Yes, somebody somewhere called W a Nazi. Same for Gore, same for Biden. I characterize Trump as a fascist stemming from his opposition to electoral democracy. I generally don’t term him as a Nazi, though he most certainly does not distance himself from his Nazi-adjacent supporters. [Nor does Vance](https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/these-people-are-nazis), who pens blurbs when his Nazi-adjacent friends publish books. I agree that slinging the term fascist at someone is shrill. But we’re here to fight ignorance and accuracy is a virtue. Reagan was not a fascist, nor were either of the 2 Bushes. McCain certainly was not. After January 6, it’s pretty clear that Trump is, especially when combined with official RNC posters like the following: [![](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:kem5cevl5sjpizk4s27cbyig/bafkreihnktzxqb3v3asb524yaxglhyagwqlyjhybappisyegiqpkvr4tia@jpeg) ](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:kem5cevl5sjpizk4s27cbyig/bafkreihnktzxqb3v3asb524yaxglhyagwqlyjhybappisyegiqpkvr4tia@jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/246 "2024-08-07T23:04:41Z")
Is Trump a fascist or fascist want-to-be? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/247 "2024-08-07T23:22:23Z")
I tend to refer to him as an autocrat only because Trump doens’t have an ideology behind doing whatever is good for him at the time. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/248 "2024-08-07T23:27:22Z")
An opportunist? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/249 "2024-08-07T23:28:26Z")
I am talking about the whitewashing of Trump by associating him with certain previous Republican Presidents, stating (in so many words) that, because they weren’t fascists, Trump can’t be called fascist, as I tried to point out to @octopus. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/250 "2024-08-08T01:54:22Z")
You can call him a fascist all you’d like. We are in a country with freedom of speech. In terms of it being a winning strategy in the long term to diminish the meaning of words like fascist and Nazi by applying them when they aren’t accurate? I have my doubts. With regards to the question of what is Trump? He seems to be a mixture of all sorts of things. Which is very hard to list definitively because of his crazy communication style. It’s hard to get into his head. I wish we lived in a world where the power of oratory and communication came from strictly logical and factual arguments. But we obviously live in a world where rhetoric has a greater impact on the populace/audience than logic. Trump seems to have intuited that and he is exploiting that relentlessly but in so doing it’s hard to know his base principles. I don’t think he is a fascist but I do think he has desire for less constraints on power in the sense that with less constraints he could get more done. I think that’s problematic. Anyways, I still think that it’s going to be an election decided on the margins and he has a chance of winning based strictly on relative turnout. And relative turnout in swing states is going to rely upon excitement, imho. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/251 "2024-08-08T02:07:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > _And_ while FL is currently considered red Biden actually only lost it by 1.2%. It was considered swing until recent cycles. Recreational marijuana and abortion rights are on the Florida ballot as state constitutional amendments. I’m not sure if that will skew turnout, but I imagine that it will help the Democratic ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/252 "2024-08-08T02:09:27Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You can call him a fascist all you’d like. I know _my_ opinion. I was inquiring as to _yours_. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/253 "2024-08-08T02:13:07Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > _And_ while FL is currently considered red Biden actually only lost it by 1.2%. Trump defeated Biden in Florida 51.22% to 47.86% – a difference of 3.36%. Clinton lost Florida to Trump by 1.2%. Trump’s margin in 2020 was the largest by any presidential candidate in the state since 2004. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/254 "2024-08-08T02:13:54Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Recreational marijuana and abortion rights are on the Florida ballot as state constitutional amendments. Gotta help the Democratic ticket. How did these get on the ballot? Citizen initiative? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/255 "2024-08-08T02:26:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Is Trump a fascist or fascist want-to-be? I have said _wanna-be,_ mainly as he hasn’t won his second term, and he is not really competent enough to be an effective dictator. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/256 "2024-08-08T02:31:43Z")
What Trump is? I’m not really sure. I know what he says and what he says is puzzling to my mind for the most part. Like, I don’t really think he believes even half of what he says. I think a lot of time he is for the lack of a better word just trolling. I guess he’s the personification of the Platonic ideal of an internet troll. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/257 "2024-08-08T02:50:16Z")
You’re right. I was looking at 2016. Point however stands. The move to more solidly red is recent and there is no reason to think that it is an unchangeable fact going forward. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/258 "2024-08-08T03:13:46Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Yes, somebody somewhere called W a Nazi. Same for Gore, same for Biden. The Dead Kennedys hated Al and Tipper for their censorship efforts back in the 1980s. No one remembers this stuff… ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/259 "2024-08-08T03:30:49Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Lots of views based on what polls of the moment are saying. One could always adopt the [Allan Lichtman](https://x.com/AllanLichtman/status/1816847990566666389?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1816847990566666389%7Ctwgr%5E7c26da560c3df550fd3d31fda835f73a5386c4e0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Felections%2F2024%2F07%2F26%2Fallen-lichtman-preliminary-presidential-prediction-harris-trump%2F74557674007%2F) approach. He’s correctly predicted Presidential elections since 1984 using a ‘13 keys’ approach in which polls play no role. He had Biden winning six months ago. He’s got Harris winning now. This has been discussed and it’s worthless. Half of his “keys” are completely subjective. I mean, I agree with him that Harris is more charismatic than Biden, but it’s not an objective fact that she is. Likewise, one of the keys asks whether either candidate is “a national hero”. Opinions will vary widely on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351/260 "2024-08-08T04:27:48Z")
You can apologize for fascists all you like. We are in a country with freedom of speech for now. In terms of it being a winning strategy to avoid accurate terminology? I have my doubts. Look, Trump is calling for concentration camps but not death camps. So I don’t call him a Nazi. But he is very much into scapegoating and ending our 240 year experiment with democracy. That makes him a fascist. Octopus: You haven’t defined fascism, so it’s difficult to understand what you are saying. Jack Posobiec seems like a Nazi to me, which makes JD Vance a Nazi sympathizer but not a Nazi. I mean if you write a book entitled _Unhumans_ which argues that a certain share of the population isn’t really human, what would you say is the proper term? Politically this sort of name calling won’t get you especially far IMHO. But we’re here to fight ignorance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-donald-trump-win-at-this-point/1005351.md?page=14)