Probably. I don’t follow US politics closely, but it does feel like we’re in the darkest timeline.

Besides, he kind of goatse-d the overton window. Nothing would surprise me now that it’s already happened once.

I’m going to say no. The loudest people don’t always seem to make it to the polls. Here in Illinois, we heard lots of hate for Pritzker. Anti JB signs everywhere. Only 58% turned out to vote and Pritzker was declared the winner within hours of the polls opening

I’m hesitant to laugh it off and say “there’s no way”.

I think it’s a coin flip. You could point to ten reasons it’s “obvious” Trump will win and I could give you ten reasons it’s “obvious” he won’t.

I mean, he may win the election. But there’s no way he makes it to office.

I doubt it. Polls conducted this early aren’t worth much. People who tend to vote for Democrats may wish for a younger candidate than Biden, but when confronted in the voting booth with a choice of fascism or Biden, most will choose Biden.

Never underestimate the stupidity of voters.

There is a strong movement to hold a constitutional convention before the next election. It is backed by a right wing group called ALEC. They think they have a loophole to make it happen and the new speaker of the house backs the idea. I think if they had a wider majority it would already be happening. They will rewrite the rules to ensure a hard right anti-civil rights candidate wins.

I think he’ll die from the stress of 4+ (and counting) simultaneous criminal trials well before any of them are held

I honestly don’t think he’ll be able to run. Two or three major things are counting against him.

1. His health. He’s 77, unhealthy, and he may not make it to 78. Both his parents died very old, mother - 88, father - 93. They also had far fewer health concerns though. Plus he caught COVID-19 with most 70-year-olds getting some sort of form of long covid.

2. He might be federally barred from office. On March 4, 2024, his insurrection trial will start and if he is found guilty it would be very difficult for any legal system to state he can still hold federal office.

3. He might not even win the primary much less the federal election. There are a lot stronger republican candidates out there and the GOP is starting to see that Trump is a dividing force. If they don’t go with him, they might split the vote between him and a GOP, if they do go with them, they might split the vote to Democrats.

Lastly and this is like 3.5, Napovointerco might be enacted. If that ever happens the GOP might not win another election. It’s essentially a state pact that these states will honor voting with the national popular vote regardless of what the people in the states vote for. It’s almost at 270 electoral votes. At that point, it will be enacted and the national popular vote will be the deciding factor going forward. The Electoral College will be dead. This also has an interesting side effect that it might cause a civil war.

Probably. It’s america after all

I think it’s a bit early to make any kind of educated speculation and wild speculation just isn’t really all that helpful for anyone.

No. I think a lot more people on the right were excited about him when he was an unknown quantity. Now that they’ve seen him in office and none of what they wanted happened (no wall, no Hillary arrest) a lot of the energy has diffused and the election is going to be decided by middle - upper class suburban whites who crave normalcy. I lived in Florida in 2016 and everywhere you looked there were trump flags, trump merchandise, etc. I just drove across the country and saw like three trump signs, one in Indiana, one in Kansas, and one in Colorado, and the one in Colorado just said, “thank you for trying to make our country great again”. Loser shit. The energy just isn’t there.

Also consider the shifting demographics. A lot of older people who tend to vote republican died of Covid these last few years while a lot of young people who grew up on anti-trump media and naturally skew left are entering voting age. There are some right wing young people but not a ton, especially compared to previous generations.

We might not have another republican president for a few election cycles. I think when we eventually do, it’ll be a young, savvy politician who doesn’t talk about culture war stuff as much but “just wants to keep taxes low and put America first”, like a further right Pete buttigieg. The current strategy of latching into divisive culture war stuff isn’t working. They want to recreate 2016 but 2016 was such a one in a million aligning of specific conditions that it’s unlikely to work again, even with bidens falling approval ratings due to unpopular support of Israel.

He doesn’t have a chance in the popular vote. He already lost it once (twice, technically). And with how polarizing he’s become, only the more extreme fringe actors are outright supporting him, and those with real money want a “safe” candidate that allows them to keep grifting behind the scenes without causing such a big ruckus. He’ll lose a lot of big donor support, and people are growing tired of the constant outrage news that he generates.
We’ve seen how he performs a symphony of a clusterfuck in a 4 year term, and not even the GOP itself is jumping right at the idea of embracing another 4 years of that struggle- they’re waffling at the idea, and a lot of the extremist upstarts that got a foothold under Trump now want to knock him out of it so they can have their own moment of glory. But Trump was a one-time shot. He was THE face of “The Big Businessman, doing a Business” that appealed to the older, more bootstrapy kind of crowd that still unfortunately dominates the actively voting public. All the younger extremists are trying to parrot him and can’t quite get away with the same level of “crazy” energy without looking actually crazy, since they don’t have the gold-plated toilet of “American Success” to back them up.

But regardless of that, will every hard-right extremist fight tooth and nail to ensure he still wins, including but not limited to high treason, rushed gerrrymandering, voter intimidation (or outright slaughter) and the active dismantling of every aspect of democracy down to the local voter box level? You bet your ass they’re gonna try here.

Yeah. I do think he will. Most people I know are pro Trump and have been consistently and vocally since last election.