Donald Trump Fights?

For what?

By
501
Former President Donald Trump attends the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 299 mixed martial arts event at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, on March 9, 2024. (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

The sharpest criticism of Friday’s newsletter, in-house and among the wider readership, was that it was thick with emotional appeals for preferring Joe Biden to Donald Trump but thin on policy arguments for doing so.

It’s fine to say that conservatives should support Biden as revenge on MAGA for spoiling their party, one of our editors pointed out to me, but that’s not the way most Americans approach voting. And realistically, anyone who’s considering supporting Trump in the year of our Lord 2024 won’t be swayed by yet another tut-tutting about how disgraceful he is.

If you weren’t put off by one of his impeachments, indictments, or coup plots when they happened, you won’t be put off now. Assuming you’re even aware of them.

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Start Your Free Trial
Already a paid member? Sign In
501
By
Comments (501)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Gene Wisdom

    I hate to say it but I'll be going for "none of the above" for the Prez race or I may throw away my vote for a write-in like Liz Cheney or Mike Pence. Just can't go for Biden due to policy issues (plus I recoil at voting for a Democrat) or Trump given his lack of character.

    Collapse
  2. JG

    That's cute that you think either one of them, especially being their second terms, would feel they owe voters anything. Both would look purely at total votes and say that they won them all because more people support their policies. And then the extremists would take over just as they have been for the past couple decades.

    Collapse
  3. Betsybowditch

    I am confident Trump is on his way down. It has nothing to do with TikTok or the national debt but his own increasingly unhinged rhetoric:

    The former president opened his speech [last night in Ohio in support of a Senate candidate he barely mentioned]] by praising the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Mr. Trump, who faces criminal charges tied to his efforts to overturn his election loss, called them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots,” commended their spirit and vowed to help them if elected in November. He also repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which have been discredited by a mountain of evidence.

    If he did not win this year’s presidential election, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful.”

    Mr. Trump also stoked fears about the influx of migrants coming into the United States at the southern border. As he did during his successful campaign in 2016, Mr. Trump used incendiary and dehumanizing language to cast many migrants as threats to American citizens.

    He asserted, without evidence, that other countries were emptying their prisons of “young people” and sending them across the border. “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases,” he said. “They’re not people, in my opinion.” He later referred to them as “animals.”

    And of course, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned while talking about offshoring’s impact on the U.S. auto industry and his plans to increase tariffs on foreign-made cars.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/16/us/politics/trump-speech-ohio.html

    Collapse
    1. Coyneric

      Don't count on it. How many thought on the evening of 1/6/21, that Trump's supporters would almost across-the-board double down on their support, and GOP pols would 95% come out to endorse him? And that they'd instantly create this twisted narrative that it was no big deal, because "THE DEMS/BLM/ANTIFA BURNED DOWN ENTIRE CITIES BLOCK BY BLOCK ALL SUMMER WHILE PELOSI, KAMALA, AND THE SQUAD CHEERED THEM ON FROM THE TOPS OF BUILDINGS!!!!!!"

      We are in massively f*cked up times in the US, don't be surprised on the evening of 11/5/24, that the map is equally as red by 11:59PM EST as it was on 11/3/20. And *if* trump loses, prepare for mayhem when his most faithful go nuts in a violent, ugly, very public way ("BECAUSE THE DEMS/BLM/ANTIFA [you know what comes next]).

      Collapse
      1. Betsybowditch

        Trump is always going to have his base, those who would support him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. But he needs swing voters to seal the deal and I think they will say "No." Polls are already putting Biden slightly ahead.

        Collapse
        1. Coyneric

          True. But the unsettling thing is that that base is de facto across 90% of the US land area. It ain't pretty living in a country where the moment you are on the outskirts of a metro area or in a college town, it's wall-to-wall monster Don't Tread on Me pickups/Trump/guns as far as the eye can see. And that *many* there seem more than eager for a Civil War II.

          Collapse
          1. Betsybowditch

            Trump is certainly whipping them up.

            Collapse
  4. Nick Pellicciotto

    My buddy’s very Trumpy mother in the Houston suburbs recently said she was voting for Biden for—and I quote—“selfish reasons”: her financial situation has improved since 2020 (probably because her scofflaw husband died of Covid-related complications in 2021). Imagine that.

    Collapse
    1. Coyneric

      Hate to be too cynical, but she's a tiny minority among those who enthusiastically supported Trump in '16, '20, and after Jan6. The allure of getting even with the anti-America, Godless Libs after decades of 'ruining America' is like crack to the GOP electorate. Very few can shake themselves of the addiction.

      Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “If, on the other hand, Haley Republicans swing toward Biden, that would provide Democrats with a centrist counterweight to the progressive vote.”

    When has Biden given the slightest indication that the Democrats would move to the center? As far as I can tell, the left seems to have this message to someone like me, “You suck for having such unprincipled positions and we won’t make a single concession to you, but it’s your duty to oppose Trump because he’s bad.”

    To which I say, “get lost. I’m never voting for Biden. He doesn’t deserve my vote. I won’t vote for Trump either but if you think I’ll vote for Biden you can pound sand.”

    I think it’s foolish to claim that Biden would be better than Trump on spending. The empirical evidence suggests both would be bad and neither would be serious. If I had to bet money right now, I still think Trump would be better. There’s at least no evidence Biden cares about the problem.

    Collapse
    1. Nick Pellicciotto

      Except that we have actual data: Trump was worse on spending.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Ben Connelly

        To be honest, the pandemic makes that a false comparison. I’m not saying Trump was good on spending. But both of them are so far from where I think the ideal should be on spending that they might as well be the same.

        Collapse
        1. Nick Pellicciotto

          Sure Jan.

          Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Chris

    excited to read "The Conservative Case for late-term abortion" in the NYT sometime next year. He's already begun moving.

    I don't believe a case against Trump is a case for Biden. Best case scenario: God floods the whole planet.

    Collapse
    1. Nick Pellicciotto

      Wow, look who loves humanity, born least of all ^^^

      Collapse
  7. Janicewfahy

    Brilliant. In the perfect world where I am Queen Bee, Haley encourages her supporters to re-elect President Biden in 2024 and then SHE becomes the face of our country's new center-right political party. Win-win!

    I know that everyone thinks we're so very divided, but the truth of the matter is that what the GOP base really really wanted was a New York Democrat! I think we're closer together than many headlines suggest and I trust the American spirit to take us the rest of the way.

    Collapse
  8. Sai Ayila

    You guys seems to forget that Haley's voters coalition : republican base range is only about 25 to 30% rest are made of independents (about 55%) and democrats (about 6%) and voted for her. The real target for Biden is capturing those independents and Democrats without losing the "pro Palestine" vote share (which are a actually a minority living in suburbs of Detroit and Minneapolis ) but the uncommitted or protest votes in Michigan was smaller only about 13% voted for it (Obama got 11% in 2012). Even without the Israel Palestine conflict Biden was bound to get 11% of uncommitted anyway, Israel Palestine conflict added only about 2 to 3% more.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      “Independent” in this case equals “Republican before 2015.”

      I don’t consider myself a Republican anymore, but I’m certainly too far to the right to be a gettable vote for Biden. I didn’t answer an exit poll, but I would have been in the faction of Haley voters who said they’d never vote for Trump.

      Collapse
      1. Sai Ayila

        Independents (could be either left lean or right lean or no lean) it doesnt matter. Yes some registered Republicans will also vote for Biden (may about 8% or so) based on a sampling exit polls on Ohio yesterday about 50% more more less said they would vote for Biden. (Once again they didn't actually break down which affiliation they belong to. You may well guess chunk of them are independents)

        Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    PGG645

    Trump fights for the right to keep himself in the limelight so he can continue grifting.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    TheKingPrawn

    Meh. Biden is still a collectivist authoritarian baby killer. If he changes those three things I'll vote for him.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Priznut

      Lol random words put together. Might as well call Biden a dinosaur socialist Zion killer.

      Collapse
    2. Nick Pellicciotto

      If anyone has ever paid for an abortion, I would bet it was Trump over Biden any day.

      Collapse
    3. Janicewfahy

      What baby has the President killed?

      Collapse
      1. Nick Pellicciotto

        Biden killed any sense of proportion in the disloyal opposition.

        Collapse
Load More