# How is trump still a viable candidate for president? Really, how? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [May 12, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949 "2023-05-12T14:28:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**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 5, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/364 "2023-08-05T20:12:51Z")
I think Heres Your Sign was by Bill Engvall. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/365 "2023-08-05T20:14:59Z")
I was trying to remember which. On further mental replay and review you are right and I am wrong. Thank you. The idea remains applicable to trumpies in either case. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/366 "2023-08-05T22:30:13Z")
Drove from Chicago up to N Michigan today. MANY Trump flags a-waving along the way. Yuck! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/367 "2023-08-05T23:24:44Z")
Well, Foxworthy might be more, "If you voted for a Cheeto-faced Shit Gibbon – _twice_… you might be a Red Neck. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/368 "2023-08-05T23:47:14Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > MAGA’s will still vote for him if he’s in prison. Will probably write in his name if he’s dead. > > That’s how far gone these people are. While I can rule out voting for Donald Trump, I can’t rule out voting for a candidate in prison. It depends on what the crime was, whether I think the trial was fair, and whether their opponent is worse, either morally, or in their stances on policy. Consider [Matthew Lyon](https://www.grunge.com/1254709/candidates-ran-office-from-prison/): > [@](#): > > Lyon was convicted of treason under the newly-passed Alien and Sedition Act for vaguely insulting President John Adams in a letter written before the act was made law. Lyon was thrown into a small, freezing cell, and not allowed pen and paper until a friend complained. Lyon still ran in that year’s election for the House of Representatives from his prison cell, and though it took two attempts before he received the necessary outright majority against four other candidates, he won the seat in a landslide. This is an extreme case, but there are others in my link I would vote for. I have reasons that I expect to vote for Biden. But Trump getting convicted or acquitted won’t change them. As for voting for deceased candidates, that often makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/369 "2023-08-06T00:52:46Z")
What gives me hope is that I firmly believe that the number of voters gained by Donnie is rather small. I can’t imagine someone who voted Hillary in 2016 or Biden in 2020 are going to go MAGA in 2024. He will likely pick up x% of new voters, but Biden will gain something \>x% of new voters. I dare say his vote total in 2024 will be less than his 2020 total. Possible wild card is that it’s virtually certain that Biden will be impeached and tried next summer. Whether this performance art changes votes is unknown. In my opinion it will just be red meat thrown at the rabid base. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/370 "2023-08-06T01:13:47Z")
The huge thing so many amatuer pundits forget is turnout. I think we can reliably assign an unchanging persistent presidential preference to nearly 100% of American adults. But of that 100%, only 1/3rd are going to bother to actually vote. Tiny fluctuations in [who bothers] utterly overwhelm massive differences in [who prefers what]. And when you add voting skulduggery, safe districts and safe states, etc., it’s far more true that small fluctuation in turnout in the correct critical districts will wildly affect the final electoral outcome. It’s easy and lazy to talk about national totals. It’s also largely irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/371 "2023-08-06T01:15:36Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > What gives me hope is that I firmly believe that the number of voters gained by Donnie is rather small. I can’t imagine someone who voted Hillary in 2016 or Biden in 2020 are going to go MAGA in 2024. The few swing voters I know who voted for Biden thought, in 2020, that he was almost unique among Democrats in being a normal old-fashioned moderate. Now he looks to be a normal Democrat. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > I dare say his vote total in 2024 will be less than his 2020 total. Could be. My prediction is that they will both get record numbers of raw votes due to publicity surrounding Trump’s trials driving up turnout. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > Possible wild card is that it’s virtually certain that Biden will be impeached . . . Are we sure of this? I would have thought that with the GOP House majority so small, they do not have the votes. In my view, any impeachment that fails in the Senate helps the incumbent. So I hope you are correct. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/372 "2023-08-06T01:19:15Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The huge thing so many amatuer pundits forget is turnout. I don’t forget it. I just think that it is impossible to drive up turnout for one party without doing it for both. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/373 "2023-08-06T01:22:05Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Hell, I’m sadly beginning to think that trump’s infamous boast “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” may literally be true. I reached that assessment a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/374 "2023-08-06T01:26:49Z")
That might have been true back when everyone read the same newspapers and watched the same networks’ TV shows. IMO it’s not even remotely true now. YMMV of course, but IMO … One of the key ideas of the RW propaganda machine is to ensure a continuous frothing anger every day of every year in every like-minded citizen. Which drives millions of folks that never used to vote to go to the polls every time from now until the propaganda stops. There is little corresponding on the LW side. For sure here on the Dope we are sufficiently savvy that we recognize the threat and will bother to vote. Lots of other LWs are not that way. Said another way, low-information RW voters are stuffed full of facts and passion. Wrong facts and misguided passion, but it’ll still move them to vote as they’ve been told. Low-information LW voters don’t know the nation is facing an existential crisis, and are generally dis-interested in doing anything about it. Such as bothering to vote. ---
**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 6, 2023, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/375 "2023-08-06T01:53:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The huge thing so many amatuer pundits forget is turnout. I think the _fear_ of a trump presidency would be the biggest factor driving people to the polls, and that does not bode well for him. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/376 "2023-08-06T02:26:40Z")
Trump is such an outlier in so many ways that I would now hesitate to underestimate him or say how things bode. Of course, it is also hard to overestimate him, or indeed hold him in much esteem at all. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/377 "2023-08-06T04:32:27Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’s easy and lazy to talk about national totals. It’s also largely irrelevant. [All politics is local.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_politics_is_local) ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/378 "2023-08-06T15:33:07Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > The few swing voters I know who voted for Biden thought, in 2020, that he was almost unique among Democrats in being a normal old-fashioned moderate. Now he looks to be a normal Democrat. What’s the difference? Aren’t normal Democrats “old-fashioned moderates”? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/379 "2023-08-06T15:33:55Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > > [@BobLibDem](#): > > > > Possible wild card is that it’s virtually certain that Biden will be impeached . . . > > Are we sure of this? I would have thought that with the GOP House majority so small, they do not have the votes. The House managers would show up in the Senate and realize, perhaps for the first time, that they had no evidence. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/380 "2023-08-06T15:52:33Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > What’s the difference? Aren’t normal Democrats “old-fashioned moderates”? To the badly mis-informed raging rightists, a modern “normal (read as ‘typical’) Democrat” is a raging anti-white anti-American socialist. The “old fashioned moderate Democrats” of the e.g. 1980s & 1990s were wrong on policy, but weren’t evil anti-American bogeymen Socialists. So in @PhillyGuy’s telling as I interpret him : > Some “centrists” and a few Rs thought Biden was an ordinary 1980s Democrat. And voted for him in 2020 over the proven useless traitor donald. Instead they’ve since learned Biden is actually a raging anti-white socialist hell bent on destroying America. They won’t make that mistake again; in 2024 they will all vote for the useless traitor donald instead. After all, it’s the only way to keep the USA safe. IMO @PhillyGuy is channeling some of that guff. He himself evidently doesn’t buy the entire Reactionary Wacko Traitor party line, but there’s some echoes of that in some of his positions. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/381 "2023-08-06T15:59:20Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I just think that it is impossible to drive up turnout for one party without doing it for both. Just overturn Roe v. Wade. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/382 "2023-08-06T16:34:08Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IMO @PhillyGuy is channeling some of that guff. He himself evidently doesn’t buy the entire Reactionary Wacko Traitor party line, but there’s some echoes of that in some of his positions. If you want to see how a pro does it, read this by Primary Colors author Joe Klein:: > **[Culture Matters](https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/culture-matters)** > > Cultural issues involve the deepest human emotions. They cannot be avoided. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949/383 "2023-08-06T16:47:04Z")
I notice you rely a lot of The Liberal Patriot as a source for information. Are you aware that it is run by Ruy Texiera, a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, which is an organization founded by and long funded by neoconservatives? You frequently state that you are a “liberal,” yet many of your posts indicate a different perspective than that of a liberal. I couldn’t figure it out, but now I think I understand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949.md?page=20)