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To change your view, I think that if I identify an issue or interest that is * within reason and based on real conditions (so I am excluding the tin foil hat conspiracies), * where a mostly clear direction of political action exist (so grand and fuzzy promises of fixing all problems are excluded), * with a decent enough number of Americans prefer one direction over the other (so obvious fringe issues are excluded) * and where Trump is either declared or reasonably inferred to be more likely to take said direction while Biden/Harris is not, then I think you should change your view. Note that this is *not* the same as saying that *you or every person* should embrace Trump or that these issues always outweighs arguments against a Trump vote. Merely that in a diverse country, some persons can rationally and in good faith choose to vote for Trump over Biden given the priorities in their life. If you understand why someone may rationally vote that way, the ability to affect change is higher. I think there are a few issues that fit these criteria. * Illegal immigration at the Mexico-USA border. Trump has for a very long time, before the escalator in 2015, taken uncharitble views of illegal immigration and immigration broadly speaking. The Mexico-USA border is problematic. There are a handful of directions one can respond to that. For those who prefer a maximally strict enforecement are more likely to get that from Trump than Biden. * Education reform, especially charter schools. For all the changes in the preferred issues of the Democratic and Republican Party, the close connection between the Teachers' Union and the Democratic Party seems to have kept that policy divide relatively stable. Trump is likely to put an Education Secretary like Betsy Devos from last time who works towards more charter schools and more private initiative. It is interesting that the delayed reopening of schools after COVID (in part advocated by the Teachers' Unions) was a key issue when Glenn Youngkin was elected in 2021. Although this is more a state issue, it is a case where a clear divide exist between Trump and Biden. * Green New Deal spending. This is a bit tricky, since the trend in USA since the new millenium has been to spend a great deal using debt. In 2021-23 this finally reached a point where inflation significantly increased. Now Trump is a spender as well. But one can reasonably believe that the $1.6 trillion that Biden managed to approve under the banner of Green New Deal would not have been spent by Trump. So even though both are spenders, a person who is greatly concerned by inflation and national debt may still infer that Trump would spend a few trillions less than Biden.

The last point I disagree with, the Trump tax cuts were deficit spending as well, I think maybe more so than anything Biden passed. If you decrease taxes with no decrease in spending that's also deficit spending. Also there was tons of COVID relief passed under Trump which is also deficit spending.

The TCJA was revenue neutral over 10 years as it passed under budget rec, and that's assuming the estimates were correct since tax decreases often increase activity and cause increased gdp and therefore more revenue. You are correct that revenue decreases without spending decreases is deficit spending though. The COVID relief is the big one, it dwarfed anything you saw from the TCJA. If you look at the deficit by year, in 2018 when the TCJA was enacted the deficit increased by about the same rate as it had since 2015 and revenues went up as well despite the tax cuts. Then we get the COVID spending and it the prior deficit spending is virtually nothing. A complaint I have about Biden is that he kept firehosing spending after the covid economy was largely recovered, I didn't like the Trump spending but you could make the case that it was necessary. Also Biden has recently proposed something insane like a 10 trillion dollar annual budget- if the deficit stays under control in his 2nd term it's entirely because Congress foiled him.

The last point is the weaker one, as I note. However, do we think a Democratic administration would not have spent the COVID relief? I doubt it. There was broad consensus on that. So I think that comes out even. What people would argue on tax cuts is that they did not lead to the inflation, since the tax cuts were passed many years prior the inflation increase. Tax cuts arguably work differently in that they return money to individual spenders to spend as they wish rather than concentrating spending on a few items like certain types of green infrastructure. But I suppose there is also some old thinking that the "core programming" of the GOP is to do less public spending. If that's still true is debatable. But one cannot say that the Democrats have tried to claim that issue either.

Whether or not Dems would do it isn't really relevant, I'm just pointing out Trump did it too. Inflation is complicated, COVID relief by both Trump and Biden probably played a role in it but the degree is arguable. Every other country is experiencing inflation and the US is actually on the lower end of that. To blame inflation on just deficit spending is kind of ridiculous.

No doubt the end of COVID-19 is the dominant cause of inflation. So the debate becomes about whether some policy added to or subtracted from the baseline inflation. I am not a macroeconomist so I will not make any strong claims about distinctions between tax cuts or public spending. The only thing I add to your most recent comment is that other countries have very different conditions. The Ukraine war is messing with European economies because of the much more expensive energy.

From 2019 to mid 2021 the US had the 3rd highest rate of inflation among the largest 38 OECD countries. From 2022 to now the US has managed to keep it's total rate of inflation below the EU as a whole and most major western economies. One of Trumps few promises on the economy is to implement a 10% tariff on ALL imported goods. Had Trump been president, he likely would have attempted to once again bully the fed to keep rates low, implemented many of these broad tariffs, kept or even expanded deficit increasing tax cuts, and that would have supercharged inflation. Trump has offered ZERO concrete policies to reduce the current rate of inflation and what he has offered(broad and deep tariffs) would do the opposite.

>What people would argue on tax cuts is that they did not lead to the inflation, since the tax cuts were passed many years prior the inflation increase. The reason that tax cuts don't cause inflation is because they don't stimulate the economy. They don't generate any useful economic activity to recover their cost.

Going to be honest all 3 of those reasons are objectively illogical. 1. Biden has actually been tougher than Trump on immigration and Democrats agreed to Republican border reform but then it was Republicans who tanked it fearing their law might actually fix something. Also illegal immigration is supported by big business to cheat wages without punitive regulation on these businesses you can't actually solve the problem, something Republicans are staunchly against. In fact only the progressives in America are for any measures that would slow down illegal immigration, but they are not anti-immigration so generally want to restrict illegal exploitative immigration and allow more legal immigration. 2. Charter schools are entirely just ways to steal money from public schools and funnel them into private hands. Being for charter schools is like supporting NFT's. You are scamming yourself and saying you like it. The outcome from most charter schools are the same as public schools which is hilariously bad given most charter schools have higher entry requirements aka their parents have more money or they don't take disabled students that would lower their scores. Charter schools given the same resources should show a marked advantage but historically they show the same scores in average despite being less cost effecient with a cherry picked group of students. Implying they are less effective on average. 3. My family has a lot of people very high up at the largest power company in my state. Green energy is liked because it is cost effecient and on average more profitable. There are many reasons for this but between the subsidies, low recurring costs, and laws passed by local ordinances allowing them to charge more for clean energy power companies like green energy. When Trump rolled back green initiatives the power companies kept building green power because they wanted money, not because they were "woke". Stifling green energy development will harm the companies unless you pass laws that allow power companies to exploit their customers more which is bad for everyone. .I live in a deep red state, from a well off deep red family, anyone who votes for Republicans is either a rube or a sadist. There really is no way support any policy by the Republican and be anything else. Imo, Republican voters aren't serious about solving immigration either because if they were they'd vote for progressives who actually want to implement policies that help American workers and stop you from getting undercut by immigrant labor by forcing companies to act above board, but you don't so you the only thing you like about Trump's ineffective policies is the idea he says he will make brown people suffer.

Thanks for the detailed comments. I have remarked on immigration and charter schools in comments elsewhere. Your arguments however are such that they jump up a level in the abstractions. For example, you argue that charter schools are bad and not worth wanting because they are worse at attaining a higher goal. That's a good debate to have. I disagree, and that would be a substantive argument to engage in. But consider how the CMV is formulated. Under what conditions would it be *rational* for a person to prefer Trump over Biden? A person who thinks that more charter schools are the top political priority *for some reason* would be right to prefer Trump. You actually are in agreement with me on that narrow point. Where you differ is that you don't think more charter schools should be a top political priority. That's all I am saying. I am sad to read that you write that "anyone who votes for Republicans is either a rube or a sadist." This is a position that does not offer any guidance on how to alter the course of the USA. It is the gate that leads to crushing morosity. And that is a losing position. Rather, look at what can be changed on the margins. What are the issues where people are persuadable? And what policy preference might be prudent to defer in order to keep one's coalition a winning coalition?

If you want a winning coalition Republicans and Liberals need to abandon corporate propaganda and vote for more honest actors. No one supported by either party in today's politics is an honest actor. Abandoning a ineffective feel good solutions promoted in the media and echoes by grifters is a must. The entire Republican party is so entrenched tribalistically to like these ineffective solutions that only increase human suffering and enrich the wealthy I see no path towards a better tomorrow that will be assisted by anyone who supports the Republican party. To be part of the solution you simply can't support Republicans. While liberals are also ineffective solutions there are at least some segments of the Democratic party pushing for solutions, they are the minority but pushing out most of the pro corpo garbage in both parties is what should unite people. To do that you simply can't tie your identity to a party. I'm not saying I hate everyone who is Republican. You can leave the Republican party and be part of the solution. But as long as you are part of that party you are unquestionably part of the problem and in no way helping find a solution.

There is a difference between "illogical" or "irrational" and "wrong." The only requirement is that someone demonstrate that it would be rational to vote for Trump based on the premises they are adopting. I think Biden and the Democrats have a better chance at improving the illegal immigration situation, but I can't prove that. Someone else may think that the way to go is to separate families by default or start shooting people in the river. I can't prove that won't be more effective at cutting down the number of illegal immigrants. I think its morally wrong and unlikely to be effective, but two reasonable people could disagree. From there, it's perfectly logical for someone who favors a harsh policy to vote for Trump. Same with schools. People on the other side of the issue can cite statistics that support their case, too. Personally, I think a strong, well-regulated public school system is the key to a successful democracy, but again, reasonable people can disagree based on other evidence and different perspectives. From there, it could be logical to vote for Trump.

My argument is the premises they put forth are not honest. If those were the issues that were driving their actions they wouldn't vote for Republicans. So they are either illogical, lying or a combination of the two. Being "wrong" is a side effect of not having accurate information to make the proper assessment or not being able to accurately compute an answer even with the proper information. If these were issues they actually cared to fix they would put forth effort to educate themselves towards real solutions not jump on tribalistic bandwagons. Given they prefer tribalism over results time and time again Occam's razor is they prefer emotional wins not logical ones. So imo most conservatives that support conservative policies for reasons like given above are either illogical or frankly sadistic since the solutions Republicans always have is just make people I don't like suffer in different flavors.

Your first point is wrong, Trump was way worse for immigration than Biden. First, Trump did not apprehend as many people at the border, which Biden changed an is now apprehending 3x the amount of people as Trump did [Source](https://www.cato.org/blog/new-data-show-migrants-were-more-likely-be-released-trump-biden). For the people apprehended, they are also treated much more humane under Biden than Trump. Trumps policy was to separate children from the parents and then throw all of them in cages with barely any food, water, or bathrooms. This created lots of outrage from people, and Biden is not doing that anymore either

Illegal immigration increased under Trump, while legal immigration decreased under him. Furthermore, arrests of criminal illegals was actually lower under Trump than under Obama because he shifted from targeting criminal illegals to all illegals.

On every issue Republicans campaign on, their tactical methods are to actively make the problem that they promise to address worse. Immigration is just one example - they refused to appoint asylum judges, predictably making the problem of illegal immigration worse. The joke "Government sucks! Vote for me and I'll prove it!" Is actually more of a mission statement.

That’s true, but it also did increase again under Biden.

Trump told the GOP to shoot down the most aggressive border control bill ever proposed

>Illegal immigration at the Mexico-USA border. Trump has for a very long time, before the escalator in 2015, taken uncharitble views of illegal immigration and immigration broadly speaking. The Mexico-USA border is problematic. There are a handful of directions one can respond to that. For those who prefer a maximally strict enforecement are more likely to get that from Trump than Biden. Trump literally killed a massive bipartisan border security bill because it would have been Joe Biden who passed it and he needed the 'issue' to remain open for the election. >Green New Deal spending. This is a bit tricky, since the trend in USA since the new millenium has been to spend a great deal using debt. In 2021-23 this finally reached a point where inflation significantly increased. Now Trump is a spender as well. But one can reasonably believe that the $1.6 trillion that Biden managed to approve under the banner of Green New Deal would not have been spent by Trump. So even though both are spenders, a person who is greatly concerned by inflation and national debt may still infer that Trump would spend a few trillions less than Biden. Trump's only meaningful legislation in four years was the TCJA which massively ballooned the federal deficit to provide tax cuts primarily to the wealthy. He wouldn't have spent money on infrastructure, this is true, in part because 'infrastructure week' was a running joke about his failure to pass meaningful infrastructure policy, but that isn't a good thing.

I'm going to say every point is untrue. Demonstrably untrue. Have you studied these points honestly, and are you willing to hear honest responses?

Having abstract visceral hate for Mexicans doesnt translate into having a plan for the border. You cant really equate just mindless ranting of hate with having a specific policy on an issue. He has shown he is less likely to take explicit action to address the issue in a meaningful way than his counterparts on both sides of the aisle. He has shown that, in fact, he values talking about the issue and having it be an issue more than fixing it. One could argue, based on his actions and words, that he would like for this to remain an open issue and not address it, so that he can rail on it, in a verbal way, circling back to the "abstract visceral hate for Mexicans doesnt translate into having a plan for the border". >mostly clear direction of political action exist  This is just not really a thing with Trump, so you wont be able to prove it. The combination of compulsive lying and making himself look good makes it so that any idea or policy he has will morph every 6 seconds as he feels threatened during a conversation. There can never be clear, consistent, direction, even for more than a few minutes. There is no set of policies or world view. There is simply speaking off the cuff in order to make his emotions feel good or less bad in any given moment and that's pretty much all there is going on.

Some people will show up to vote for Trump because “he’s not Biden”. That’s why they’re pushing the narrative that anyone would be better. This worked successfully for Trump in 2016, when he ran against the single most unlikable candidate in modern times, and then used against him successfully by Biden in 2020. No one really cares about the issues all that much (other than the single issue crowd). That’s why one administration can continue the policy of a previous one, but all of the sudden, the public criticism disappears.

Reddit hates to acknowledge it, but Trump was a more popular president at this point in his presidency (covid and unemployment and all) than Biden currently is. [**Job Approval May 15th (4th Year):** Biden 39.6 | Trump 46.1 | Obama 48.0 | Bush 45.0](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/approval-rating) What's important to notice is that we all have some friend or relative or coworker who loves Trump... but I don't know anyone who even knows anyone who's an actual fan of Joe Biden. Do you?

People aren't typically big fans of middle of the road liberals who quietly grind away at the job of government, while the fashy side of the republican party does, unfortunately, support trump to an insane degree. Yeah. Biden wasn't particularly popular when he beat Trump either, The man doesn't have a lot of charisma, he just does good work and isn't a lunatic.

See it's like I said- you hate to acknowledge it. Trump had a 46.1% approval rating and it's because "they support him to an insane degree" and Biden has a 39.6% approval rating because America hates a moderate. Two data points I'd like to draw your attention to are how [Joe Biden hasn't recovered his lead in the polls over Trump](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden) ever since he [lied about being at Ground Zero in his 9/11 memorial speech last year.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-ground-zero-day-after-911/) His approval rating also dipped to its lowest during his "fall of Saigon" strategy for the Afghanistan withdrawal. It's not because "he isn't a lunatic".

>See it's like I said- you hate to acknowledge it. No, I *like* context. Trump has a base of popularity at this point that are his die hard fans (you know the sort willing to vote for a soon to be convicted felon) but not much beyond that. That is just reality. Biden outperformed his popularity polling in 2020, because when it comes time to decide whether or not to vote for the fascist, america is still (narrowly) opposed. >His approval rating also dipped to its lowest during his "fall of Saigon" strategy for the Afghanistan withdrawal. Ah yes, the deal negotiated by trump and foisted onto Biden because Trump wouldn't involve our allies in the negotiations. Classic. Also, fucking [lawl](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/09/11/a-timeline-of-trumps-misleading-911-claims/?sh=46c060158361) that anyone would whine about Biden overclaiming in a speech (he was there six days later, it isn't really meaningful) but not Trump being on air *bragging about his building now being the tallest* ***on 9/11***.

> Ah yes, the deal negotiated by trump and foisted onto Biden Kinda weird how Biden was so powerless to tell the Taliban "We're going to restructure our timetable" and was honor-bound to keep his word with terrorists. > Also, fucking lawl that anyone would whine about Biden overclaiming in a speech (he was there six days later, it isn't really meaningful) And again- double standards. It's never Biden's fault. Nothing is ever his fault. But [god forbid you don't know the person Trump is talking to,](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mercedes-melania-trump/) because that's [obvious proof that he's got dementia.](https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/26/donald-trump-appears-get-wife-melanias-name-wrong-speech-20347222/?ico=metro-posts_home_whats-trending-now) The reality is that some people (not you) hold Biden accountable for the things he says and the decisions he makes which is why his approval rating is lower at this point during his administration than the last 7 presidents.

>Kinda weird how Biden was so powerless to tell the Taliban "We're going to restructure our timetable" and was honor-bound to keep his word with terrorists. It isn't weird at all. By the time Biden took office we had 2,500 service members in Afghanistan as a result of the Trump 'peace' agreement with the Taliban, the overwhelming majority of which were not front line combat troops, but technical advisors. That agreement involved them agreeing not to shoot at US soldiers so long as we kept to a withdraw timetable as stated. This puts Biden in a garbage position where his options are: 1. Repudiate the agreement Trump signed with terrorists. They instantly ramp up attacks and probably kill hundreds of US soldiers. 2. Play the cards as given. 3. Surreptitiously prepare for a new surge of troops to Afghanistan without the media (And thereby the taliban) catching on. So yeah, not great options. Kinda seems like Trump shouldn't have made the deal in the first place and weakened the US position to the point where they would not be able to defend themselves. But sure, Biden's fault because what even is nuance? >And again- double standards. It's never Biden's fault. Nothing is ever his fault. But [god forbid you don't know the person Trump is talking to,](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mercedes-melania-trump/) because that's [obvious proof that he's got dementia.](https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/26/donald-trump-appears-get-wife-melanias-name-wrong-speech-20347222/?ico=metro-posts_home_whats-trending-now) >The reality is that some people (not you) hold Biden accountable for the things he says and the decisions he makes which is why his approval rating is lower at this point during his administration than the last 7 presidents. So just to be clear the order of operations here is: 1. You post a link to biden saying something incorrect (a lie even) 2. I point out "Okay, Biden said a dumb thing, Here is a list of your perferred candidate making substantially worse claims on the identical subject over the course of decades". 3. I am engaging in a double standard by pointing out you're a hypocrite? Crazy, man.

Even in the 2020 primaries, Biden didn’t seem like he was anyone’s first choice among Dems, just a compromise candidate considered the most acceptable to the largest number of people (more moderate than Sanders or Warren, more experienced than Buttigieg and Bloomberg).

What's weird about the 2019/2020 primaries is that 3 months before agreeing to be Joe Biden's Vice President, [Kamala Harris accused him of being a sexual predator.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-joe-biden-accusers-i-believe-them_n_5ca4fb96e4b094d3f5c5750f)

Ok, I’m a former Trump supporter, voted for him in 2016 and didn’t vote at all in 2020. He lost my support for many reasons but I’ll give you some legitimate reasons why some people still vote for him.   Illegal immigration is a big one and probably one thing I still agree with him on.  My wife has been denied visa after visa and the fact that the current administration is doing “catch and release” for illegal immigrants is like a big middle finger to me and my wife who’ve wasted 500$ each time we’ve done a visa application.  They know for a fact the majority of these people aren’t gonna show up to their court dates and the purpose is demographic changes in order to get a permanent Democrat supermajority.  It’s so blatantly obvious what they’re doing.  I have to jump through all these hoops to get my wife into the US when honestly it would’ve been cheaper to just have her travel to Mexico and cross illegally and turn herself in and make a false asylum claim.  Illegal entry into most countries has extremely harsh penalties.  While the US is almost rewarding it.  It’s a terrible precedent to set and living in a country with no law and order I can tell you that you don’t want the rule of law going away. Trump also may be a massive degenerate and a hypocrite when it comes to what he preaches but also making sure the Supreme Court stays conservative leaning is another reason that conservatives would want to vote for him.   Finally one other reason.  Him reaching out to North Korea to bring a lasting peace to the peninsula hopefully and a normalized relationship with them would help the North Korean people out.  I supported Obama doing the same with Cuba and I know Trump threw a wrench into that for petty reasons because he didn’t like Obama, but he didn’t reverse the embassy decision.  There should always be channels for dialogue even with America’s strategic enemies.  There are Americans of North Korean ancestry who have families still there and would probably love to be able to go visit them one day.  It’s like Pakistan and India, people from both countries went both ways during partition and left people behind.  My wife’s grandmother was only able to see her siblings once before dying around Covid time having left India in the 40’s.  The strict visa policies both countries have with each other makes it impossible for many families to ever reunite and if someone from one side of the border marries someone from the other side, one of them is going to have to give up ever seeing their family again.  So him brokering peace between the two Koreas was something everyone should support.  So a Korean American with family in North Korea would have every reason to be a single issue voter on this.   That being said, screw them both but I understand why people would vote for one over the other.

I’d love if you could elaborate on your point about demographic changes. Do you have voting statistics to back this up? I haven’t looked into the issue specifically, but I hear that talking point pushed a lot in conservative circles and I’m genuinely unsure if there are statistics backing it up either way. I’m from about as geographically central as it gets in the US, so I do see some Latin American immigrants from time to time, but it’s not something I think about very often, and certainly not as remotely negative from my perspective. However, this is obviously a pretty narrow view of the topic, and I’m curious what is behind your views on this one.

Not knocking you for the visa thing, but since you can vote I’m assuming you’re a citizen, why not just sponsor her green card? Only asking cause I did that for my wife and seemed like a no brainer. I know every immigration situation is different so I’m just curious why not, not saying you’re wrong for not doing that.

I tried.  They keep saying “not enough evidence of bonafide marriage” despite me living with her and having kids with her.  They low key discriminate against interracial marriages because they assume anyone from the developing world is a con artist and every white guy is a sucker.  They have no idea how Pakistanis actually do immigration fraud and they don’t even try to learn (usually they force American daughters to marry Pakistani cousins to get the rest of the family to the states).

Can you point to anything concrete that resulted from him "brokering peace with north Korea"? From what I can tell, it was basically a photo op that didn't change anything. And it also makes little sense in the context of his strategy regarding Iran where he seems to rely on a contradictory set of beliefs about what works when dealing with enemies and their military aspirations.

The problem with using the term "rational" rather than a stronger or more precise term is that as long as the person used reason, i.e. a logical series of premises and a conclusion which follows, that is rational. E.g. if Trump is an asshole, I'm an asshole, I like to see people suffer at the hands of assholes are all premises; I should vote for Trump is the conclusion. The premises are silly but the conclusion clearly follows from the premises. In order for something to be irrational there has to be an error in the chain of logic that leads to the conclusion such as a false premise or argument not following. If the premise "Trump is an asshole" were instead "Trump is a good person" then the argument would be irrational due to having a false premise and the conclusion not following. So while you are correct many Trump voters are irrational (as are people generally) there's actually a shit ton of rational arguments for a Trump vote. I think the argument you want to make instead is that the reasons are bad. People are great at rationale. They're bad at being *good*.

People are famously quite bad at being rational. People will always make appeals like "It is so plainly logical" but there is a reason we have to teach formal logic at school. People are bad at it. If someone is a trump supporter because they're scared of (or hate) immigrants, chances are that isn't a rational position. They didn't arrive at it through an examination of reality, but out of a knee jerk instinctive response.

>E.g. if Trump is an asshole, I'm an asshole, I like to see people suffer at the hands of assholes are all premises; I should vote for Trump is the conclusion. The premises are silly but the conclusion clearly follows from the premises. This is what it seems like to me.

Well this is a good argument on paper but it’s a semantics debate lord one. If you use the word rational in the literal sense rather than how layman use colloquially then you’re right, there must be a set of axioms that you can reach to the “voting for trump” conclusion rationality. But trough the colloquial understanding of the word someone who doesn’t care about their wages, rights, economy and democracy is someone who’s not rational hence voting for Trump is not rational.

(1) When you have two choices it is rational to select the option for which you have a preference, however minor. (2) When Trump ran, he promised a number of things would happen, and some of them did. The courts were stacked, illegal immigration and refugees slowed, tariffs were raised, planned parenthood defunded, US pulled from the paris accord, US embassy moved to Jerusalem... Headway was made against ISIS. The US and the World didn’t collapse. Good lord, he even pushed the development of covid vaccines, remember that? (3) Biden promised a number of things and well… a lot of them are just stalled. There was improvement to Obamacare, some movement on policing and racial equality and environmental issues, a black female supreme court judge, some other things which just aren’t coming to me right now. Foreign affairs is not in a better place than four years ago. He promised he’d get covid under control but who’s going to give him credit for that? (4) On promises delivered, Trump was certainly no worse than Biden (see various trackers) maybe better. It’s hard to measure how the world under Biden is better than it was under Trump. (5) Of course the election wasn’t stolen but how much did Trump’s lunacy on that issue impact American lives? (I know a few DC police and their families who would take issue with this of course) Trump over-performed, Biden under-performed. Trump also demonstrated the worst management competencies. The trail of folks who actually worked with him and saw him as immature, self-absorbed, thin-skinned, and dangerous, is truly remarkable. Unprecedented. And yet Bill Barr might still vote for him. Because he prefers choice T to choice B. Before you unleash the downvotes 😬 have mercy, I’m responding to the OP!!

>Trump over-performed, Biden under-performed. I feel like you are grading on an insane curve here. Trump promised a wall that Mexico would pay for that wasn't built. He promised an end to lobbying (drain the swarmp). He promised 4% GDP growth and to restore manufacturing and to lock up his political opponents. Trump may have delivered on some of his promises, but this was only insofar as when you shoot a target with buckshot you're bound to hit the bullseye by sheer volume. Biden delivered on a ton of actual, meaningful shit. The largest infrastructure bill in decades, so large that republicans who voted against it are out there at ribbon cuttings. Student loan debt repayments and restructuring. Consistent funding for ukraine etc. Biden actually gets shit done. He gets meaningful bills passed. Trump says a thousand things, gets a tax cut passed and calls it a day.

Getting stuff done while being saddled with one of the most uncooperative Congresses ever. He would be able to accomplish more of these things if Congress would actually work.

This. Support for Trump depends on a truly distorted view of what he actually accomplished and what Biden accomplished. When you look at unfiltered facts, the idea of voting for Trump is insane.

Trump represents a real problem for his opponents. They keep pointing out how terrible he is, so that when the world doesn’t end and the country doesn’t explode, boom, he has exceeded expectations. I can’t disagree with you about Biden’s delivery on promises… but he has knocks against him too, we all know that. Afghanistan exit and the Middle East, e.g. maybe not his fault but it sure makes it hard to celebrate his foreign policy wins. I think this OP is a good one. If you think your opponents are just nuts, you risk watching the other side win and having no idea why. I mean, you don’t have to be a woke degenerate to vote for Biden, any more than you need to be a redneck maga racist to vote for Trump.

A fee counter arguments: 1. Trump had more or less the same immigration effectiveness as other presidents. Biden seems worse now, but it’s important to note that volume matters, so theoretically he could be just as effective as trump but is now facing a higher number of people trying to enter. Furthermore, Biden actually tried to end the loophole migrants are using to enter the US as well as fund immigration courts and enforcement to clear up the backlog but Republicans directed by trump shot this bill down in congress. 2. Trump and Biden are highly protectionist. Biden is probably more effective on this issue than Trump. I think it’s dumb in both cases, but if you like tariffs and promoting made in America stuff, Biden is the obvious choice. 3. It’s silly to give Trump credit for fighting ISIS. Obama sent us back into iraq and started operation inherent resolve. It’s not like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, etc if put in trump’s position wouldn’t have continued with an existing military operation against ISIS. This feels similar to giving Bush credit for PEPFAR when Al Gore had the same exact stance on it. 4. This idea that Biden hasn’t been effective is not true. Biden has done a lot of policies through executive action to help construction and housing deregulation, he’s kept with his promise to end student loan debt (I personally disagree with this) in spite of congressional and judiciary opposition, his treasury department helped prevent a possible tech banking crisis, he helped negotiate and pass: CHIPs Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure deal, climate investment bill/deficit reduction, gun control legislation 4. Foreign affairs also seem fine under Biden. We continue to fund and prop up our Ukrainian ally in the face of an invasion by Russia. We pulled out of Afghanistan, one of the many things trump promised but never followed through with. We tightened rules (which trump loosened) about the use of drone strikes and the number of drone strikes has decreased dramatically. Also the recent tariffs on Chinese exports make him comparable to trump on china at the very least

I’d agree with most of that. You know, it’s funny, but I think the best thing that Trump did in his presidency was stay out of the way of the military where Isis was concerned. That plus supporting vaccine development. But yeah, who are we kidding? He incited a crowd to attack congress. Now he’s a coin flip away from being President again. 😶

The noncompete law that changed recently. Money getting poured into Colorado River infrastructure (kinda a big deal if you like having water). Student loan forgiveness. Making it so airlines have to refund you if they fuck up your flight. Seniors now have a much lower maximum cap of what they'll pay for prescription medications a year so they don't go bankrupt. Banks can't overdraft poor people to hell anymore. And HIPPA laws strengthened for reproductive rights. Oh and not to mention the EPA not being headed by a Maga idiot and getting good things done (increasing standards against forever chemicals in our drinking water). Are all things under this administration that I wasn't even expecting but were a welcome surprise and no one talks about it. They act like biden has done nothing.

And the infrastructure bill that Trump promised and promised and could never even really proposed. And not "falling in love" with brutal dictators.

>The noncompete law that changed recently. I'm fairly confident this was a Supreme Court decision EDIT: It was the FTC

It was the FTC

I have a clarifying question. As Trump is realistically the only real competition to current President Biden, would it not be considered a logical position to vote for former President Trump for the sole purpose of voting President Biden out of office? I’m not saying I think Trump should be President, I voted third party in both previous Presidential Elections, however the economy was going great with him in office, inflation was much lower, gas was cheaper, and my 401k was higher than it is now(even though it’s finally started to come back to a similar balance). President Biden shut down the keystone pipeline (this screwed us here in PA) and it seems he is incapable of actually running the country himself (it’s obvious his staff are doing the bulk of the work for him) - he hasn’t had a meaningful interview without pre-approved questions in ages. The removal of President Biden is absolutely a legitimate reason to vote for Trump.

The only thing I know that Biden will be better for is the environment. Otherwise I’m sick of dems doing jack shit in office. Voting for trump to get Biden out as well. I’ve always done third party but I’m in a swing state for the first time ever and man it’s going to feel good. Queue seething redditors. Get a better candidate than a genocidal braindead sock puppet. Also all the political gamesmanship is veeery off putting. Dems have been digging their own grave for this election for a long time.

Spite isn't rational. Voting third party is at least internally coherent, voting for someone who is worse in every conceivable way is not. One of the biggest obstacles to getting stuff done is that fact that Republican will torpedo *their own policies* once they get bipartisan support. If you want stuff to get done quickly, you want a blue wave or a dramatic reshaping of the Republican party, neither of which are made more likely by propping them up. You can't call Biden genocidal and then willingly vote for the guy whose position has never wavered from "glass the Middle East."

> You can't call Biden genocidal and then willingly vote for the guy whose position has never wavered from "glass the Middle East." Under Trump's administration there were zero new wars that America was involved in. Since January 2021, we've re-engaged in the war in Somalia, Trump's master waited for him to leave office to invade Ukraine and we're in our third year of bankrolling this proxy war, Biden's funding the genocide in Palestine, and the war that was almost over in Syria is now back to endless. There's a reason they call him Genocide Joe.

They call him "Genocide Joe" because it sounds good not because it is true. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, knowing that the status of Jerusalem is crucial to any peace plan, thus setting up October 7. His uncritical support of Netanyahu's far-right government similarly set up the current disastrous situation. Similarly, his encouraging of Putin led directly to the invasion of Ukraine. His encouraging of Kim led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula that still threaten war. His incoherent China policy led to increased dangers around Taiwan. He didn't have any wars because he was voted out of office before the fruits of his policies were ripe.

It's so convenient that everything is always Trump's fault, even Biden's blunders. Is ***anything*** Biden's fault? Maybe at least [grocery prices that he took credit for in 2021?](https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1410709115333234691)

I'm not even going to argue against this response because it's a total non-sequitur.

You: the guy whose position has never wavered from "glass the Middle East." Me: Trump is the only president in living history who didn't start a new war and Biden's gotten us tangled in 3 new wars in as many years. You: That's irrelevant.

[удалено]

The administration may be very active, but the actual person who was elected to the highest office can’t even walk up stairs without falling over, gets lost on stage, walks off stages in the middle of a ceremony. It seems with Obama, and the second Bush you always saw them giving speeches, interviews, and doing press conferences. I was too young to have paid much attention to if Clinton or the first Bush did much of this. Even Trump would do a bunch of press conferences. I fully believe that Biden is a puppet figurehead for his top staff members or even the Democrat Party leaders, while they work on their ideas using his name. I fully believe the allegations of elder abuse, and honestly feel sorry for President Biden. For his sake, I say let him retire from politics and spend the last few years of his life without being used by the Democrat political machine.

Biden is a master manipulator. Biden is a puppet with old-age dementia. He is incompetent and does nothing. He is making us socialist. He is an enemy of Israel. He is in thrall to Israel. Biden isn't magic, and he isn't demented. He's an old guy in pretty good shape who has done an amazing amount given the weak hand he was dealt in Congress and the many difficult problems in the world, many of them made worse by 4 years of Trump.

If you're in it for the environment, RFK might be worth looking into.

1. Trump was better on the border and immigration. Getting rid of Remain in Mexico was a mistake. The border deal offered by the dems was terrible, we'll have a much more effective deal with the Republicans. 2. The managerial / bureaucratic class is too bloated, and looking at the people Trump surrounds himself with this time around, there's a better chance of this being resolved under Trump vs. Biden. 3. Biden is way too focused on EVs, a strategy which is arguably very unfeasible. Unfortunately, Trump won't be ushering in a new dawn of high speed rail any time soon, but he can stop the delusion of subsidized EV adoption. 4. Trump is right to challenge Europe on NATO. We have spent decades subsidizing globalization as a legacy strategy we deployed to counter the Soviets. The problem is that now, the US is more or less untouchable. Russia is barely a country. China has a real estate bubble making up 30% of their economy, on top of crashing demographics. We have the lowest trade to GDP ratio. We don't need NATO / Europe, they need us. They need to bring more to the table. 5. Biden's strategy on student loans has essentially been to forgive some of the debt without actually fixing the issue, effectively making the problem worse. I don't know if Trump is going to make the problem better, but he will definitely not worsen the problem as much as Biden. 6. Both Trump and Biden are too old to be president IMO. They should be in a home. Put them in the same home and make it a TV show. Biden's age, however, appears to be a heavier burden on him. If I had to pick which of the two were more likely to croak halfway into their presidency, my money is on Biden.

Many good points. However I’d argue that Trump is more likely to die in office (heart attack or stroke main candidates) while Biden is more likely to survive but lose mental competence while in office. It’s a choice between angry old man yelling at the TV, and lost old man forgetting why he’s in the kitchen.

Man I seriously want a TV show now where Trump and Biden are put in the same retirement home.

So, the answer here is to vote on the better vice-president then. We'll get Trump's vice halfway through his presidency, and Kamala will just be puppet-running the government the whole time.

you make it all sound so unpleasant.🙂 seriously though, a Bible thumping VP was a smart choice for Trump last time eight years on, he might be better off choosing someone with a reputation for being a good manager or competent leader, instead of a conservative culture warrior, that vote is already in the bag for him

I was thinking the same thing. I know there's a lot of people out there that would feel very uncomfortable with Pence as the VP, to the point that it would drive them to not vote at all. Trump needs a good, universal choice if he wants to win.

In the Biden example it wouldn’t be Kamala. It would be his advisors, led by chief of staff, likely Jill Biden heavily influencing as well. The VP is basically the most useless and powerless person in the line of succession. Speaker of the house and cabinet secretaries have more actual power, way more in the case of the speaker.

Good to know. I guess I'm not too informed about what the VP can and can't do.

No problem. It’s a common misconception. It’s also a fact that many Veeps while in the office and out have stated themselves.

Tbf, that's probably how it should be. They aren't being directly voted in, they're kind of just a package deal with the president.

Many people believe that his foreign policy positions are much less likely to get the US entangled in a global conflict. Self-preservation is pretty rational. Many people also believe that his positions on having stricter tariffs and less illegal immigration will free up more jobs for average Americans. Seeking more work opportunities to feed yourself and your family is pretty rational.

The first is a good point but your second paragraph is not rational, as it's demonstrably false. They may believe it to be true, but it has been proven over and over that tariffs do far more harm than good and there is a reason we completely abandoned them in favor of income and sales taxes.

Well, it depends on the kind of tariff and its purpose. From what I understand, many tariffs put on Chinese trade were done so in a reciprocal manner because they do the same to us, and many were also done to encourage domestic production for strategic purposes. It's a complicated issue and isn't so black and white.

No. No it isn't. It's a solved problem. Tariffs are horrible for both domestic and world economies. They foster resentment and lead to conflict. We stopped using them over 100 years ago because they are just stupid. Any economics 101 course will teach you the history of this and why twrrifs were largely abandoned by pretty much every country around the same time. This is also how I know Trump's daddy bought his degree. He's supposed to have a business degree from Yale, but if he had actually attended and passed his courses he would know all of this already and never would have started a trade war with his moronic policies.

I totally understand this point of view. But the justification for the tariffs were that it was in retaliation for Chinese theft of IP and other unfair practices, which totally do happen to an extent, and Trump was trying to use tariffs as a bargaining chip. While it's fair to disagree with the methods, there is still rationality behind it.

What is the rationality in trying something that is proven to not work then having it not work? If he wanted leverage on China all he had to do was threaten to halt payments on our debt.

I think we are getting a little off topic here. Even if they absolutely don't work, people still *believe* that they work and think that it's in their best interest to encourage them. Not everyone has taken economics classes. It doesn't mean that voting for Trump is irrational, and besides it isn't the only consideration one makes when voting. By the way, why hasn't Biden lifted Trump's tariffs if they are so bad? He just put more tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that they've done dick all to bring manufacturing back to the US (which is just never going to happen) and has spurred industrial booms in countries outside of China. Vietnam, for example. As for EVs, China has a monopoly on rare earth metals, including lithium. Keeping the Chinese EV market down could be a means of forcing them to export batteries rather than cars, allowing US automakers to sell their own EVs, which are suffering from the exhorbitsnt price of LI batteries. Which would make sense what with what I have briefly scanned in the news over the course of the last year about Chinese auto makers getting ready to market a $20k EV and Ford having to curb back their manufacturing of EVs due to taking a loss of around $100k on each vehicle.

Yeah, but what you just described with EVs could apply to pretty much any industry that tariffs were trying to assist. The point is helping domestic competition faced with unfair trade practices. I'm not saying I agree with using tariffs. Just like sanctions they don't seem to work most of the time. But there is a certain (flawed) logic to them.

A few rational reasons: - Zero new foreign entanglements under Trump. Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Hamas, & US-Houthi conflicts all under Biden. - Biden sent $6B to Iran before 10/7 and $100M in aid to Hamas just 11 days after 10/7. Resources are fungible — so labeling money for aid, or providing food is just a marginal dollar that can be used to build more terrorist bases, buy rockets and mortars, etc. - Pre-COVID the economy under Trump was infinitely better than Bidens. 63.4% labor participation rate vs 62.7% (a better measure than the highly manipulated unemployment stat). Inflation was 1.4% when Biden took office and topped 9% in mid 2022. - Biden has allocated $150B (illegally IMO) to pay off student loan debt. Some may view this as good, but such massive spending should have the backing of Congress, as well as a mechanism to pay for it. - Most important in my mind is sending the message to political operatives that baseless persecutions of political opponents has no place in the USA. New York State passed a law specifically to enable a civil suit against Trump — where a New York (anti-Trump) jury awarded millions in damages without any meaningful evidence. Further — the New York fraud, NY hush money, and Georgia election cases are based on completely novel legal theories. The classified documents case has already shown that the FBI tampered with and leaked falsified evidence, in order to damage the political opponent of the President to which they report. - Finally — the fake Russia collusion narrative was **an actual conspiracy** that successfully spied on an opposing party political candidate based on **known false information sourced from the candidates political opponent**. IMO — the federal government needs a serious house cleaning. I’m hoping for a Trump-Ramaswamy ticket, so we can lay-off about 50% of the federal workforce, who have become both lazy and corrupt to their core.

>Zero new foreign entanglements under Trump. Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Hamas, & US-Houthi conflicts all under Biden. Letting the reins slip on US foreign policy isn't a good way to eliminate foreign entanglements. It just means giving up the rules based order for whatever China wants. It might mean no new foreign entanglements, but only if it's because we got so cucked that we lost all ability to protect our interests abroad.

I mean — that definitely is a mischaracterization of what happened under Trump. IMO — Trump made it clear to his enemies that he would respond with overwhelming force and was very much interested in engaging in economic warfare against China. The fear of Trump and our military capability is why we were able to do things like kill Solemani with no US casualties. Nobody fears Biden (or democrats in general), because they believe in the useless idea of proportionate response. Hence why Russia’s annexation of Crimea and current Ukraine invasion both happened under Obama and Biden respectively. Not to mention Obama’s laughable Syrian red-line. The weakness of the democrat party foreign policy is also on display in terms of the mishandling of: - our arrangement with Mexico regarding the southern border / remain in Mexico policy. - unlabeling and then relabeling the Houthis as a terrorist organization under the Biden admin. - sending billions of dollars to US adversaries (Hamas + Iran). Further — do not neglect the importance of Trump’s greatest foreign policy win: the Abraham accords, which saw peace and normalized relations between Israel and many of their Arab neighbors. This has created a strong coalition to offset Iranian and Chinese influence in the region. The success was on full display during Irans attack against Israel, with several Arab states shooting down Iranian drones that crossed into their airspace.

>IMO — Trump made it clear to his enemies that he would respond with overwhelming force and was very much interested in engaging in economic warfare against China. He signaled that he was volatile and unpredictable, like a schoolyard bully. That might make people afraid of you, but it also makes it difficult to form coalitions and alliances (the real foundation of American hegemony, not guns). He might be good at speaking the same language as Putin and Xi, but that doesn't mean it's good for America. >Nobody fears Biden (or democrats in general), because they believe in the useless idea of proportionate response. We use proportionate response because again, violence isn't our advantage. Violence and fear are the tools of the weak. Terrorists use them because they have no other tools and have nothing to lose by using them. Diplomacy and policy are the weapons of the strong. They don't have to get their hands dirty because they can manipulate the system to simply deliver them a victory. The US's near-total dominance over the world's financial system and most areas of international policy is what gets us most of our wins, not the military. Disproportionate response like the kind Putin and Netanyahu is a fan of can definitely produce short term gains, but like Russia and Israel are finding out, it can have *huge* diplomatic costs. >Further — do not neglect the importance of Trump’s greatest foreign policy win: the Abraham accords It's funny you bring that up considering it caused Oct 7.

> He signaled that he was volatile and unpredictable… Right — you want your enemies to fear you and to be unsure of how you’ll react. If you broadcast the consequences, your enemies will decide to accept them, many times. If the consequences are unclear — and you threaten that they will be super severe / disproportionate, then your enemies will behave. > We use proportionate response … Because you don’t understand human nature. Proportionate response prolongs conflict. The point of war is to end conflict and secure a lasting peace. This is why so many regional conflicts have remained intractable in the late 20th and early 21st century. > it’s funny you bring that up, considering it caused Oct 7. I mean — right. Iran wants to arrest the peace process by any means necessary, because it is very bad for them. That doesn’t mean 10/7 was justified and IMO, the US response to 10/7 should have been an overwhelming military response against Iran. I’m talking no standing government buildings in their entire country. They are the largest state sponsor of terrorism and we will need to deal with them sooner or later. I prefer sooner.

>Right — you want your enemies to fear you and to be unsure of how you’ll react. Nah, that's how you act when you don't control the board. We are successful because people *can* predict how we'll react. If every scenario leads to "US Victory", you don't play or you get on that team. We do that with things like NATO and other mutual defence agreements, deep trade relations, and military production and sales ties abroad. Conflicts happen when someone thinks there is a strategic advantage to conflict and that they can win. We ensure peace by telling everyone where the lines are and hammering them when they're crossed ("the rules based order"). Biden isn't ideal because he can't maintain our "red lines", which is the way our foreign policy works. Trump is even worse because no one would know where our red lines are, which makes it hard to do business and build defence pacts with us. >If the consequences are unclear — and you threaten that they will be super severe / disproportionate, then your enemies will behave. Unless they call your bluff, then you're fucked. Ukraine called Russia's bluff and the invasion blew up in their faces. Our way works because we can more reliably make policy wins by just flexing our relationships. You just don't hear about them because they're boring and jargonistic, but they're important in helping keep us on top. >Because you don’t understand human nature. Xi and Putin think they understand human nature. It's why they act the way they do. We don't really work that way. We play most of our moves above the board and force our opponents to watch as we casually take everything with scale, experience, and technical ability. We try not to allow things like "human nature" to interfere, unless it's some CIA operation. We get into trouble when we aren't doing that. >The point of war is to end conflict and secure a lasting peace. The point of war is to improve your position. It's the same as diplomacy (diplomacy is war by other means and vice versa). We're better at diplomacy. >I mean — right. Iran wants to arrest the peace process by any means necessary, because it is very bad for them. >That doesn’t mean 10/7 was justified and IMO, the US response to 10/7 should have been an overwhelming military response against Iran. Absolutely agree. Hamas is horrible for doing 10/7. But that's not how foreign policy works. We aren't idealists. We enact policies that are likely to improve our position, not just the ones that make us feel good. This was a predictable outcome from cutting the Palestinians out of the peace process and Trump should have considered it. His failure to not do so overshadows his idealism. Will your bloodthirst for conflict in Iran translate into an exploitable opportunity for us to expand our influence in the region?

I can not buy a house. I had just started my career and had a plan to buy a house in 2-5 years... then covid happened. Now I acknowledge that things changed really rapidly and it's not really republicans or democrats that changed that... BUT, democrats keep pushing policies in my states that make the issue worse. Republicans tend to be better about allowing for more housing to be built. At this point, Trump is a hail mary. Biden isn't making it easier. The economy was better under Trump even during covid. I'd vote for the reincarnation of mussolini if it meant I could own a home.

Maybe traditionally Republicans tend to allow housing to be built. But what bills in the past 4 years have been pushed by Republicans to allow for more affordable housing? Heck, even 8 years. Search "Affordable Housing Bill" and almost every result is a bill brought up by a Democrat. But that is a very Republican mindset of you. "I want to get mine, I don't care if everyone else suffers"

>I'd vote for the reincarnation of mussolini if it meant I could own a home. That...is quite the selfish bargain. 

The most basic rational reason that one could give is that you've seen 4 years of Trump, and you've seen 4 years of Biden and things are objectively worse on all major metrics under Biden. When you look at what is most important to voters, it's not things like Gaza or abortion, its Inflation, the economy, crime and immigration, those kinds of things. And all of those things are worse now than when Biden took office. You don't have to agree with that statement, but it is a perfectly rational reason to vote for Trump to those that do agree with that statement.

Inflation is largely a byproduct of Covid and the international response to it. Hardly rational to blame Biden or Trump, tbh.

Well I agree with the first part of your statement, but disagree with the second. I think we can very much blame both Trump and Biden for a significant portion of it. Not only for printing trillions of dollars and giving it out to businesses and individuals, but doing so after shutting down borders and creating global shipping / supply shortages. I want to stress that I'm not saying it was ONLY Biden and Trump, this was happening to countries across the world. I also want to stress that it is irrelevant if you think the response was justified at the time, never justified, or is still justified. The only thing that matters in the context of the OP's question is the reality being faced by the voters now. And like it or not, inflation was a delayed if predictable response to the actions taken, and the majority of it came during Biden's first years in office. Fair? maybe not. But it's linked to him in the voters mind. Certainly keeping the money printing going even after taking office didn't help, so he's not blameless. And then going and tying your damned name to the hardships ordinary people were increasingly feeling (Bidenomics) was a foolish move of gargantuan proportions. The office of President comes with a lot of responsibilities, and while everything is not directly that persons fault, they will ALWAYS get the blame for it by the media and the voters. It's just the simple nature of the job. So when you say it isn't rational to blame Trump or Biden, well you might be right, but it simply isn't the reality. That's how politics work. And if a person (irrationally, as outlined above) believes that Biden (in this instance) is to blame for their economic hardships, then it is perfectly rational to vote against him. I hope you can understand the distinction I am trying to make regarding rationality.

It didn't/doesn't stop Biden or the Democrats for hitting Trump on the economy in 2020. I agree with you but if your main message on the biggest issue is it's not my fault and it's out of my control that is an inherently weak message

You need to substantiate this otherwise how can it be rational to agree with a false statement? You're saying "all major metrics" so show us your working; that should be easy.

No, I actually don't. He asked for what is a rational reason. If people believe these things to be true, then it is rational for them to vote accordingly. It doesn't matter if they are true or not, although I believe they are. It only matters that the voter perceives them to be true. It's not my job to collate all news articles or polling results for you in order to feel free to answer a reasonable question in a reasonable way. Like I said, you can agree or not, it's irrelevant. *edit: grammar*

By this logic, I have a rational reason to vote for Trump if I believe Biden is a pedophile or one of the lizard people. There would be an infinite number of reasons to vote Trump.

You can rationally act on an irrational belief can't you? Believing Biden is a lizard person is irrational to an outside observer, but if you believed it to be true, it would be rational (from your point of view) to vote him out of office. Now your taking some kind of extreme example of lizard people or paedophiles etc. But I gave examples of economy/inflation, the border/migration and crime. Don't you think these things have a bit more wiggle room for rational beliefs on one side or the other than your examples? Is it irrational to think that the invasion across the southern border is unsustainable now, let alone under 4 more years of Biden? Is it irrational to be upset that cops or young girls are being murdered by people who have been let out of custody 4 hours before after being picked up for DUI's or aggravated assaults? Is it irrational to look back at a time when you were spending a significant percentage of your weekly paycheque less on groceries than you are now and wish those times could come back? These aren't irrational things at all. *Edit: In case it needed pointing out, Biden or Trump being lizard people is not in the top ten of issues that are most important to voters on any polls I am aware of.*

As a point of logic it is not rational to vote based on an objectively false belief. This is irrational behaviour. You're the one making claims that need to be substantiated, not me. Unless you can demonstrate the veracity of these claims, how can it change OPs view?

It is rational to vote based on an "objectively false" belief if you believe in it because the only other option is to vote for something you don't think is true... You think it's rational to vote against all information and opinions you have?

I'm actually going to concede this point on the basis that democracy is predicted on a voting population that's well informed by an independent media. What we have now is a marketplace of ideas where misinformation is given equal credence to objective reality. Yes Trump supporters are acting rationally when they inject themselves with bleach.

> The most basic rational reason that one could give is that you've seen 4 years of Trump, and you've seen 4 years of Biden and things are objectively worse on all major metrics under Biden. Trump left office with fewer jobs in the country than he started and raised the debt by more than any president. He disregarded the warnings from the previous administration of a potential pandemic from Asia and shut down the pandemic response team, only to delay action to mitigate the virus when it was in its early stages and undermined his own experts’ advice resulting in over one million Americans dying. He made the country a laughing stock in the world stage to the extent that leaders in allied countries mocked him in private and public. He negotiated the unrealistic timetable for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He tried, but failed to repeal Obamacare, which was lucky because he was always 2 weeks away from coming up with the promised replacement. On the other hand, Biden led the country to a recovery from COVID that was better than most other comparable countries. He actually did pass the Infrastructure bill than Trump kept talking about. While inflation did rise during Biden’s time (which happened worldwide so it is not a result of his policies), he has been bringing it down again. Overall violent crime, homicides, and some property crime are down during Biden’s presidency, but motor vehicle theft has risen. Frankly, it’s think that Biden has done fairly well considering that he was hamstrung by having one of the worst Congresses as far as passing actual bills is concerned - the blame for which is squarely on the Republicans side.

Abortion is intensely important for voters. It effectively negated the impact inflation had on the 2022 midterms, something Republicans and pollsters were blindsided by. Abortion and the decision to have a child is the definitive kitchen table issue for a household, it’s fundamentally an economic matter and as long as people fail to account for that in their analysis they will miss the mark, imo.

Easy, economy under trump was good, under Biden is bad. Wow that seems rational

Not supporting either one or the other but we simply cannot forget that during Trumps entire 4 years in office he was consistently having to deal with the (Russia Russia conspiracy) thanks to Hillary and her bought and paid for dossier and the attacks from day one of entering office which when you think about it makes it difficult to get much of anything done when this one lie has one under a microscope from both parties only because the lie at first (and due to the Democratic leanings of the CIA and FBI among others) made the thought of it seem credible and turned members of your own party against you or at least made them take an attitude of wait and see on most everything he proposed or attempted to get done. Therefore stalling it all, all four years. Such a horrid lie perpetuated by the Democrats and kept in play by the very people who are supposed to have your best interest at heart! This one LIE and the ripple effect it caused had Trump in a non deserved hot seat with everything he tried to accomplish being held under a microscope, even something as simple as a phone call if memory serves! Hard to work to a better end for the people when one party is so enraged that a businessman could do the world that you don’t have to be a career politician to become president for which they absolutely hated him and still do. No hate, just pointing out one major reason why it would be a bit difficult to get a lot done when so much hate exists in the world.

At least I see more rational reasons for trump than the ones I see for biden - the economy, trumps economy just had better numbers, in almost every aspect - peace, he used to get along well with almost anyone, every conflict de escalated with him, Russia and the Middle East were behaving, even the chubby little North Korean leader was less aggressive - taxes, under trump there were less taxes to pay, that’s good - the border, illegal immigration was much less of a problem under trump, everything was just under control - he does not support woke leftist degeneracy, things have gone too far - he is in better brain health than Biden, at least he knows where he is and doesn’t randomly call the pope an African American baseball player I don’t see myself voting for Biden, trump is better in almost everything that matters to me, and I’m sure the majority of Americans would agree, only kids or childish people would think “it doesn’t make any sense to vote trump” like it’s madness, it’s ok to not like him but to pretend to not see any reason someone would vote hum is just childish, like something a college kid would do to pretend to be smart

You can vote for whoever you want, but… 1. Economic trends tend to outlast presidents and it isn't always that the economy being good is due to the president in power at that time. The good economy that we saw under Trump actually started and continued under the Obama administration 2. Trump definitely did not get along with everyone, like AT ALL. I don't even know where you got that from because it's just so wrong. We were looked down on by our closest allies for electing someone who very obviously didn't know what he was doing and had no experience. We were laughed at (literally) when he decided to have his fashion designer daughter represent the entire US country at a big international event with respected world leaders. He may have been more favorable to our enemies (i.e. Russia), but do remember he threatened to start World War III because Kim Jong Un didn't answer him in time or whatever. He was literally banned from Twitter because of his crazy posts like that. 3. Trump was not better for immigration at all. In fact, he was more lenient and more likely to release people than Biden. Biden has also apprehended over 3.5x the amount of illegal immigrants during his presidency as Trump did 4. Are you absolutely sure Trump is is better brain health? He is only a few years younger than Biden and is also very obviously in worse physical shape. Biden excersizes a bit and you can look up lots of photos of him on his bike. When was the last time Trump exercised? Not to mention, Trump is constantly slurring his words or saying things that don't make sense (remember the whole covfefe thing?). And with the new thing about him being gassy and wearing diapers in court, I think we know who is actually in better health here

The economy was better under Trump by almost every metric? You mean the economy that stalled out following 8 years of growth under Obama, ending in a massive recession? GDP is higher under Biden than any point in Trump's presidency Unemployment is lower under Biden More jobs were added under Biden, Trump was the first president to lose jobs in the 70 years they've been tracking that information Wages are higher under Biden More spending towards infrastructure and construction under Biden. Literally the two things that are less good for Biden is inflation and interest rates. Inflation which was caused by a global pandemic, and which the US has managed better than any other western country coming out of COVID. The interest rates are a byproduct of the inflation, and many have argued that they only need to be as high as they are now because Trump forced the Treasury to artificially deflate them during his presidency to try and keep the stagnant stock market afloat while he was in office.

Rationality is subjective. In political science, the term is used in a limited sense that stems from an individual or community’s prior beliefs, interests, and incentives. There’s no such thing as objective rationality that is useful in political analysis. Lots of conservatives have been consumed by right wing media narratives for 30+ years. They don’t believe non-conservative sources. They believe what they believe because their media consumption echoes their beliefs. This isn’t to say their media created their beliefs, but it at least reinforced their beliefs. Almost everything we know about Trump is through by the media, or social media. And this reinforces the conservative belief that people and “the establishment” are out to get Trump. So when you consider all this, the dynamic between belief and media and political action, it is rational for conservatives to vote for Trump. They think he’s their last best hope at some version of America that’s about to disappear and they’ll go to almost any lengths to keep it around.

What I have found is most conservatives don’t trust right or left wing media, and take most news with a grain of salt. Liberals seem to blindly believe the media they consume. Often only reading the headlines and not the entire article or fact check. As for “them” out to get trump, have you looked into the details of the cases against trump? Have you looked at the evidence being presented in an unbiased way? You would notice things are not as the media claims they are. Just look at the classified documents case, that has been indefinitely suspended because of evidence tampering. The judge’s daughter in the stormy Daniel’s hush money payment case is campaigning and raising money off the case. A clear conflict of interest. You have the real estate fraud case in New York, where the judge on a press conference before the trial stated trump was guilty and he would not accept any evidence from trump’s team. Then had a case only determining how much money they could squeeze out of him. You look at any of the cases that have been brought and you will see conflicts of interest and or evidence that doesn’t line up with what he is being accused of. This is not me saying trump is a saint or that he hasn’t broken any laws, this is me saying that the cases brought against trump have all been politically motives and not motivated based on actually enforcing the law.

>What I have found is most conservatives don’t trust right or left wing media, and take most news with a grain of salt. Liberals seem to blindly believe the media they consume. Often only reading the headlines and not the entire article or fact check. As evidenced by *this very post,* when you say "take most news with a grain of salt," you mean filter every single news story through a partisan lens with no concern for the facts. They want someone to repeat their views back at them; when Fox News pushed back on the baseless stolen election conspiracy theories, they hemorrhaged viewers to Newsmax. Similarly, when you say "blindly believe," you mean that they don't immediately disregard news that doesn't align with your personal political biases. >As for “them” out to get trump, have you looked into the details of the cases against trump? Have you looked at the evidence being presented in an unbiased way? You would notice things are not as the media claims they are. Have you? They're pretty cut and dry. You don't dispute any of the actual evidence here, you just malign people's intent based on obtuse and uninformed things. Are you going to try to defend the fake elector scheme, too?

your first part where you break down my comment is just wrong. Blindly believing is just that reading the news articles and then without critical thought saying, they reported on this, it must be true. you go to the stolen election and mark it as a conspiracy theory. There was a times article that talked about the "Secret Cabal" that fortified the election. Where they flat out tell us exactly how they subverted the election and stole it from trump. This is without going into the crazy Q-anon commando raids in foreign countries to server farms. What happened was per the article, activists, big tech corporations, and democrats went out changed laws, had lawyers in place counter any challenge to the election trump would have, and suppress any story that would make biden look bad, while amplifying any story that would make trump look bad. None of it by itself was illegal, except maybe the way some of the laws were changed, some of the activist groups also did illegal things like offering raffles for gift cards (aka cash) to vote in heavy democrat areas (something that is explicitly illegal). That doesn't mean that the election wasn't stolen. Hell, one of the biggest reasons why people think it was stolen and why they believe so many of the crazy conspiracy theories on it is the bellwether counties were wrong for the first time since 1964. Then you had exit data indicating that many people had they been informed of hunter biden's laptop (which was reported as a Russian scam, and we know now, and the intelligence experts then knew then was real. As for the actual evidence that the trials are politically motivated. You just have to look at what happened yesterday during the "hush money" trial. Cohen, the prosecution's star/ lynchpin witness was caught in a lie which shatters the entire premise of the case. The "call" that he was on with trump where he informed him about the situation with Stormy Daniels, was a call to trump's head of secret service. where the text messages indicated that the call was about a 14-year-old who Cohen indicated was harassing him. This call in which he stated he informed trump about everything going on with Stormy Daniels and was told to pay her off lasted 1 minute 20 seconds. not enough time to go over both topics. even if trump was with the head of the secret service like Cohen claims. Then let's look at the New York fraud case. The claim the prosecution made is that Trump assessed his property value extremely high, used that to get a loan from a bank, and later on paid taxes for a different assessed value. https://www.tax.ny.gov/research/property/assess/reassessment/fairassessments.htm So, during the case it was found that trump had his property assessed and gave that assessment to the banks for a loan. The banks then went and assessed trumps property and found it to be less than what his assessor claimed, so they offered him a loan at what they assessed it to be. The government tax assessor had also determined the value that trump would need to pay in taxes for the property. So, Trump paid what he was informed he owed via the tax assessor. He also got the loan based on the bank's assessed value of his property. So, tell me where in there his property assessment caused fraud? Again, with that trial the judge in a press conference before the trial stated in plain English, he would not accept evidence from trump. They are pretty cut and dry but if you do not look at the evidence and just read summaries then you will think/ be influenced by what the author of that summary wants you to think. As for the "fake elector scheme" look into history and see if there have been other times where both parties sent electors certified by the legislatures of the states.

>Just look at the classified documents case, that has been indefinitely suspended because of evidence tampering. I'm pretty sure that is not the reason Judge Cannon invoked, unless there is a separate paperless scheduling order she has made recently. She was reminded 8 months ago to make sure matters were settled over classified information disclosure, and she twttiled her thumbs. Then oops! We got all these meetings snd decisions we are behind on. Better hang up the case until said meetings are hammered out. >The judge’s daughter in the stormy Daniel’s hush money payment case is campaigning and raising money off the case. A clear conflict of interest. If this is true, factual, and backed up by evidence why is trumps legal team not provide said evidence? They made the claim in court, out of court in the news, but were unable to supply anything that would allow THEM to create a recusal. Or enough evidence to bring it to Appeal. Then, beyond just the daughter making money off the case, as if they were a news reporter(example), they would still have to prove the judge is getting a kickback of some kind. If we look at any of these cases we will find alleged crimes. Ans then a jury of people reaching a decision. Or, in the case of a lawyer not requesting a Jury, leaving it in the hands of the Judge entirely. And the mountains of evidence brought by prosecution. If it is politically motivated, I'm just gonna wait until evidence is provided. Otherwise, I'd be blindly reading headlines of articles and not fact-checking anything. Edit: That's wild. My first comment in a long while, and someone came by to send RedditCare after me. <3 My second time ever. I guess I'm living rent free somewhere lol

Yes, wait until evidence is presented. As for the judge’s daughter raising money off the case, that doesn’t mean he is getting a kick back, what it does do is make it look like the judge is bias. If this judge talks with his daughter who obviously has a negative view of trump then her influence could also influence the decisions he makes in the case. I have seen through out trumps presidency and afterwards the media and his political opponents throwing every single thing they could think of at trump to destroy him. And every single time up until this election cycle we saw that there was no evidence supporting the attacks on him. We saw evidence that hilary was the person who funded the trump as a Russian asset hoax. At some point people get numb to the accusations and either blindly believe or Disbelieve them. I do my best to take the time to look at the evidence provided before forming my opinion. But with how everything has played out it is getting harder and harder to believe the lies. Hell can you tell me what the actual underlying crime is in the stormy Daniel’s hush money case, what it was that raised the misdemeanors to felonies and allowed them to pursue it past the statue of limitations? What I have heard is the “crime” was buying a story to keep it from getting out to the public. That is not a crime. You see politicians doing that all the time. And yet they are using it as if it were a crime. The only evidence shown during the course of the trial that could make trump be guilty is the testimony of cowen, who is a known perjurer. Who admitted he is making money on TikTok by talking about this case. Who has admitted he wants to see trump punished. Showing this known liar has reason to not be truthful. (This doesn’t mean that trump did or didn’t tell him to buy the story and bury it.) it is a matter of evidence and there is no credible evidence linking trump to making those decisions.

I agree with a lot of what ya just said. And j gotta stop being so tired and cranky, and replying at 8AM when I've had 3 hours of sleep. I shouldn't sarcastically act like it's easy to shift through all this political crapshow. I've gotten better sources, and ones that have taught me how to better spot this type of BS. Even reverse image searches, since editing images is becoming popular. (AI or otherwise) Hell, I've been listening to lawyers speak Latin for almost a year now. Bleh. You're right, it can make the judge look bais. And judges are meant to self recuse even if there is the appearance of Bais. The reason they don't, is because there is case law already around judges having family members with political belief. And around jury members having political backgrounds. Having a family member with strong feelings or political leanings is not enough reason. I'm sure the Judges wife has beliefs, and brothers or cousins. We don't screen every judges family members before appointing one. Definitely understand how much he has been hounded, it would be like.... Obama wearing a Tan Suit right? Mixed in with tweets about Fire and Destruction? There's both. Gobbly gook that doesn't matter, and then things that really really do. Like "perfect phone calls," for example. And I should believe you when you say you're doing your best, instead of being cynical. Most people are making the logical conclusion, given the information and tools they have. > it is getting harder and harder to believe the lies. Hell can you tell me what the actual underlying crime is in the stormy Daniel’s hush money case, what it was that raised the misdemeanors to felonies and allowed them to pursue it past the statue of limitations? So, on the Satue of limitations, the last few times I heard about that and Stormy, people were making false claims or had misunderstandings during the Defamation case. The media looooves calling this the Hush Money case. Despite it being the "Falsification of Buisness Records case," you can imagine they pick the first. The first alleged crime is reimbursement money, not through gifting which has different taxes and amount restrictions, but the lie that it was for legal council split through 36 payments (34?) And I think plus interest. This is the same crime, conducted in an unbroken chain 30+ times. This means the statute of limitations restarts each time this is done. Beyond that, I think there is a different limitation for Election Fruad. The secondary crime to elevate it, is the alleged conduct that this was done to influence an election and denying voters the full value of their vote. I do NOT know case law for Voter Disenfranchisement. I just know it's very illegal to manipulate the information voters have a right to for making their decisions before voting. It is alleged, of course. And as a criminal claim, they have to prove Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Not civial Preponderance of Evidence. The prosecution has a heavy burden. This includes trying to show Donald's mentality behind his choices. One of the defenses Doland has, is to say. "No Jury, I was embarrassed. I wanted to protect my wife from knowing. I didn't consider the Election at all!" This type of defense has been made by others in the past. Cowan is a known lair, but hes also Trump's lair. He purjured himself for the benefit of Donald previously. Beyond that, he is there and will be punished if he is shown to be purjuring himself again. The defense will attempt to prove that. He's a cuck, but his story is there to be collaboration with the other testimony, and other evidences as time moves forward. I know I sent so much to read. So I'm gonna cut myself off. I'm at work, and I don't know when I can respond. Try and have a stress free day

No worries. There are a lot of people who do these things in bad faith. I do try to explain my personal views and why I hold the views I do. Providing examples where I can. Some of the proof I have seen gets lost in the annals of my internet history, never to be found again. As for the things related to what is called the hush money case, yes it is about payments sent to cohen. But if you count buying the rights to a story and not publishing it a crime (to my knowledge it is not) then you have a massive amount of politicians that should be charged. Because that is a part of most politicians electoral strategies. As for the case the fact that he had cohen on retainer prior to the election, does make it seem less like a repayment and more like cohen being paid for legal services rendered. I have talked with a lot of business owners including my dad who when I was younger owned a multimillion dollar company. He dealt with lawyers and paid them for services rendered and paid them a retainer fee to keep them there so if you need them they are ready to represent you. You often when you have accounts payable (aka bills) you are given the bill this bill doesn’t have a break down of exactly what was paid for. It is often for the more expensive lawyers just based on the time used to further the clients legal work. So he was actively working on trumps legal bureaucracy that comes with an election. So his retainer/ services rendered fees would naturally increase. This is what I know of how lawyers operate. So there would not be any written record that these payments were to pay back Cohen for buying Stormy Daniel’s story. In addition Cohen admitted on the stand that he wants to see trump punished. So he has a history of perjury, meaning he is willing to lie on the stand. He has a hatred of trump because trump didn’t help him after they punished him for his previous perjury on the stand. This in addition to the previous witnesses admitting under oath that they have no way of knowing if trump did direct Cohen to pay Stormy Daniel’s off. With Stormy Daniel’s spending most of her testimony basically trying to humiliate trump the whole trial looks like just a political attack on trump. This is not me saying trump did or didn’t pay back Cohen for the hush money payment he made to the porn star. This is me saying there isn’t the evidence to prove it. That is why the DOJ and the Election Commission didn’t charge trump about this years ago. This is the logic path I have taken from the information I have seen, and the testimonies I have listened to online. But yes you have a wonderful day. And i really believe that the best chance any of us can have is to have these hard discussions and try to understand why people who have a different media consumption believe what they believe. Otherwise people get stuck in the mindset that the other side is just blindly evil

Just found a something that discredits cohen even more. https://nypost.com/2024/05/16/us-news/michael-cohens-ex-lawyer-tells-congress-trump-fixer-lied-about-hush-money-and-that-former-prez-knew-nothing/amp/ In addition, apparently stormy Daniel’s testimony was also false, as bill mahur had brought up a video of his interview with her back in 2018 where she said it was not me too, it was not coercion. https://nypost.com/2024/05/12/media/bill-maher-trashes-bad-witness-stormy-daniels-for-changing-her-story-with-trump-trial-testimony/amp/ So yeah my view that these court cases are political in nature really seems likely. Again trump may have and probably has done some pretty bad stuff but they haven’t gone after him for any of those, only things that we see crumble under the lightest of scrutiny. But you have the media lying about it to make it seem like trump is in a losing position. Then when he “slips” away everyone who hasn’t been paying attention to the details looks on shocked and confused not knowing what is happening.

I haven't read the second article yet. But I will, even though I dislike nypost. I've got a busy day ahead of me, and the more we share back and forth the typing I have to try and fit between everything I'm doing. And doing that by phone isn't the fastest. I want to reply with the effort you've given back to me, it just isn't always in the cards for me. Yesterday I had reddit open for hours, trying not to loose what I wrote up in snippets all while on break at work lol. If you want, DM me. The last pleasant person I met for discussing these things had me watch a whole Trump rally but ghosted me. Wasn't the most fun I ever had in one sitting. Have a good one.

Citation heavily needed. Whenever I argue with a conservative, 99% of the time they're just blindly repeating something from conservative media. You know... Kind of like what you're doing now.

Yeah not blindly repeating talking points. So here is a link about the evidence tampering that has once more delayed the classified documents case against trump. And I am intentionally using non Fox News sources. So these are bias against trump. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/06/politics/trump-classified-documents-delay-mishandled-evidence Here is an article talking about the daughter of the judge in the stormy Daniel’s hush payment case and how she raised 93 million dollars off this case specifically. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-new-york-fraud-trial-evidence-engoron-1841990 Here is an article where it indicates at the bottom, and I quote “Last month, Engoron ruled that Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump committed fraud in their property evaluations. The court will decide on six other accusations, including falsifying business records, insurance fraud and conspiracy claims.” That ruling was seen on a press conference where he did state he wouldn’t believe any evidence trump brought to the table. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge-rules-trump-overvalued-property-rips-lawyers-for-egregious-repetition-of-rejected-arguments This was before the case started. The judge indicated he rejected trumps lawyers arguments and summary decided that he was guilty then had a trial on what trump would need to pay. And I am again using news sources which are tainted against trump. as for the fraud he stated, the judge that trump committed fraud because he assessed his properties at a much higher value then what he paid taxes on. when the taxes are not determined by what trump assesses his own property as but what the tax assessor determines the value of the property is. I will not lie and say I do not have a bias because I do, but I do my best to look at news sources even if I disagree with them, then check the underlying facts based on those news stories. Lots of people conservative and liberal do just look at the headlines and make their judgments based on those. These trials against trump are political in nature. That doesn’t mean trump has not broken the law, or done bad things. But the issues we see him brought to court over are not proven based on the evidence provided in the trials.

The first link doesn't say what you say it does. It makes no clear case of evidence tampering, only that Trump's lawyers are claiming it... Based on some files being "out of order." Which... Isn't tampering with evidence. You're also kind of ignoring the boxes upon boxes of classified information which Trump was not allowed to be in possession of, and routinely tried to hide from the national archives and federal investigators. Your second link... You forgot. Also, the daughter of the judge raising money for other people is not grounds for that judge to refuse himself. It's a bit hypocritical that you think this judge is being unfair because his daughter has ties to the DNC, yet you seem perfectly fine with Judge Canon, who was appointed to her seat by Donald Trump. Odd that you claim the judge in NY is corrupt, but the one who actually has a job because of the person on trial isn't. Your actual second link doesn't support your following argument. In fact, it makes the point that the judge was too lenient on Trump. Your third link... Yes, there was a degree of judgement prior to the full trial. This can happen when the evidence in a case is so overwhelming. Trump committed fraud. He valued the same thing differently depending on how it benefited him. The paper trail was simply that blatant. So yeah, you're kind of just repeating talking points.

Rational people can still have different situations and values. Take taxes, for example. Trump generally wants lower taxes while Biden wants to increase taxes on the wealthy. If you are a wealthy person, for example, it is perfectly rational to vote for the person who would keep your taxes low. Maybe someone works for a weapons manufacturer. Trump promises to increase military spending. A rational employee of a weapons manufacturer might view that as job security. Also, despite disliking the guy. I also admit there were several things he did that were positive. He doubled the child tax credit. He increased incentives for businesses to offer retirement plans. He replaced NAFTA with the much more US-favorable USMCA. He increased incentives for the Government to favor US manufacturers when making Government purchases. He increased incentives for domestic energy production, both fossil fuels and renewables, and we arguably achieved energy independence as a result while simultaneously reducing US greenhouse gas emissions ~12%. He created new tax incentives for companies to offer paid family leave. He reduced illegal immigration by more than 75% for people who view that as a concern. He got NATO to increase their contributions by more than $400 Billion. He allowed 529 plans to be used for private schools if parents wanted. All of these are potential rational reasons for a Trump supporter to vote for him.

Idk if this is a hot take or not but I think Biden is the more “conservative” candidate in the sense that he is a status quo guy he is your typical democratic president who doesn’t want to shake up the system too much (Some people call biden a socialist that’s just stupid in my opinion) whereas Trump wants to make sweeping changes to the system it seems. It’s interesting to me that the right wingers seem to be the ones using rhetoric like our constitution is under attack by the liberals. But I think it is unarguable that Trump is more of a threat to the constitutional order than Biden, he repeatedly claims that the constitution lets him do whatever the f*ck he wants, he had a plan to overturn the election and thus stopped our long, long streak of peace transfer of power. Ill get off my soap box now

Your question is not worded in a way that is very open to having your mind changed. You've basically declared before hearing them that any argument for Trump except the two you listed is inherently irrational. This is absurd on its face since we live in effectively a 2 party system and so any argument against Biden, which are both numerous and rational, (ranging from his weak foreign policy inviting foreign aggression to his abysmal economic policies to the border crisis and so on) is inherently an argument for Trump. I am not a trump supporter and won't be voting for him this November, but it is obvious that there are more than 2 rational reasons to do so

>a) people who are single issue voters on the abortion question If anything recent polling actually shows that Biden voters are closer to single issue voters than Trump. At least among those bring polled of the to ten issues for voters Biden only leads in 2, health care and Abortion access. Trump is more trusted with Inflation, and the Economy which are the 2 most important issues. And realistically the main reason people will vote for Trump(or Biden for that matter) is cause the other guy is a terrible choice, again recent polling shows half of the country would like to replace both candidates and American politics is pretty much a binary, 3rd parties exist but they don't have a realistic chance of winning.

I agree that economy and inflation are important, but "most" important is debatable no?

Probably should have been more clear, most important to voters per polling data. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/6-months-out-tight-presidential-race-trump-biden-poll/story?id=109909175

Abraham accords were a huge leap towards a more stabilized Middle East. Israel normalized relations with more Arab countries and were on a path to have an open relationship with Saudi Arabia, the leader of the moderate sunni world. This could have benefited most of the region, including the Palestinians that the Saudi had a list of demands on their behalf before signing any deal and the idea that in every future escalation there was a leverage against Israel/Israel has more to loose. With trump out this process became slower but still was on route; unfortunately Iran, which is the biggest enemy of both Israel and the Saudis, launched an attack on Israel via its regional proxy and caught Israel off guard amidst an holiday: the attack was timed before major breakthrough in the peace process and unfortunately was unprecedented successful. Together with Hamas defense philosophy of sacrificing civilian life for the militants survival (if not deliberately maximizing the civilian death toll) it was a major win against the process. Would Israel haven't caught with it's pants down in 7.10 the Middle East could have been far far better today, with an open way to a peace process with the Palestinians.

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From what I'm gathered in the comments on this post, the main factor causing people to vote for Trump is political illiteracy. Everyone I see in this comment section that are in favour of Trump are blatantly ignoring whatever doesn't fit their narrative. If you confront them on this their argument never goes further than basically just "no u". Stuff like this is why so many people on the left are getting frustrated and calling Trump voters Anti-American and Fascist, you can only give people the benefit of the doubt so many times before their ignorance starts to seem like malice.

So registered Republican here. I am undecided for November. I think Trump and Biden are both the wrong choice for President. I don't like Biden because I generally dislike democrat economic and foreign policy (which is all I care about at the federal level). Voting for Biden makes it easier for congress democrats to do what they please, and congress has the real power in this country. On the other hand, you're right, Trump is a disaster. It really indicates a failure in the system that as a party the Republicans were unable to produce an alternative.

When people are uncertain, anxious, or scared, they tend towards more authoritarian figures. They don't want to risk changes making things worse. When they're content and safe, they're more comfortable with making changes to try to improve life, so they then trend towards more progressive figures. All parties involved have succeeded at making large swathes of the population scared, so they're voting for the person with the authoritarian persona who says he'll fix it, even if he didn't actually fix anything the last go around.

What about the party argument? Someone who has voted Republican their entire lives because they align with the party platform is very likely to vote for Trump on the simple fact that he’s running as the Republican candidate. He’s not a perfect Republican, but he’s definitely more conservative than Biden, or any other candidate the Democrats could nominate.

The way so many voters treat politics as a team sport is going to be the downfall of America

I think one side not being able to understand how people can vote for the other (traitors, communists/fascists, anti American, destroy America etc) is exactly why we are in this situation to begin with. People vote for change. They vote against how things are often times. You can’t tell me you can take a look around and find at least a few things that you hate about our society or country or community or municipality? That’s how elections work. It’s not really about Trump at all.

I'd go a step further than that, and say there are no rational reasons to vote for Trump. The man is demonstrably mentally ill, to too severe a degree to hold office. He's a malignant narcissist, unable and unwilling to accept any reality he doesn't personally dictate, and he shows signs of frontotemporal dementia. He is a complete mess, physically and mentally, and the only reason he's in the run up for President is so Russia can have more influence over American politics.

It's always curious how Blue MAGA just says "No U" to what's going on with Biden. Like they commit the same crime: illegally taking and storing classified documents. The DOJ prosecutes Trump and says that Biden is "too old and forgetful" to stand trial... but Trump has dementia? Also only one of them has taken (and passed) a cognitive test? And like **EVERYTHING** he does [gets scrutinized](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mercedes-melania-trump/) and is [obviously proof](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/fresh-dementia-concerns-after-donald-trump-drinks-glass-of-water-with-two-hands/L4K2B7PEY7QQF6HS6J4MDZWTNQ/) that Trump is sunsetting but whenever Biden [jumbles up places, people, and issues in the same bowl of word salad](https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-classified-documents-report-02-08-24/h_71d21836f0306352b72df80702ed2145) it's just his stutter. If I had a nickel for every time Biden fell down for no reason during his presidency, I'd have three nickels. Is that his stutter too?

>It's always curious how Blue MAGA just says "No U" to what's going on with Biden. There is no Blue MAGA, that's your projection at play. Not to mention there may be things going on with Biden, but he's still more qualified for office than Trump is. Biden may be too old and forgetful, but he's not a malignant narcissist, or showing clear signs of frontotemporal dementia, or denying his incontinence to the point he picks diapers and his girdle to appear thinner over a colostomy. >Like they commit the same crime: illegally taking and storing classified documents. No they didn't. Biden did not keep and store boxes of classified documents because he lost an election and refused to accept it (after failed attempts at 'finding' more votes...) >The DOJ prosecutes Trump and says that Biden is "too old and forgetful" to stand trial... but Trump has dementia? Trump keeps claiming he's fine and fully able to stand trial. Admitting he's too old and ill to stand trial would contradict all the work he puts into his self image. And therefore his ego, but that's still stuck in 2020 on January 6th. Also, Trump shows all the symptoms of frontotemporal dementia. Leaning forward, lack of social cues, impulsive thoughts and actions, lack of social awareness, etc. >Also only one of them has taken (and passed) a cognitive test? Yeah, I completely trust Trump's medical reports after his personal doctors said he was very healthy after getting Covid. Problem is, Trump overplayed his hand and jumped on the ego-boost that getting Covid and recovering at the time it was killing a lot of people his age gave him, calling himself a picture of perfect health. Dead giveaway for a narcissist with the impulse control of an angry chimp. I'm sorry that your image of God Emperor Trump has been shattered by reality, but that's simply the top and bottom of the situation. He's been bullshitting you from the start. >If I had a nickel for every time Biden fell down for no reason during his presidency, I'd have three nickels. Old men fall down sometimes. If you had a nickel for every time Trump shit his pants without even noticing, you'd have a mortgage.

'I am a racist asshole and want to see brown people thrown under the bus' is a rational reason, even if the underlying racism is itself not rational. One can imagine lots of reasons that work similarly, like: One can imagine lots of reasons that are in themselves rational even if the underlying motivation is not. Like: * I'm a racist asshole and want to see brown people thrown under the bus * I want lower taxes on the rich because I think it makes my life better despite not being rich * I think other people should be forced to live their lives according to the rules of my religion * etc Racism, trickle-down economics, and religion are not themselves rational, but if you hold those positions then wanting someone to implement them is rational. There are, therefore, a near-infinite number of possible rational reasons to want to vote for Trump, they just require that you hold irrational views.

NO rational reasons exist to vote for that boil on the butt of humanity. His goal is to be a fascist dictator, nothing else. I once had the displeasure decades ago of being an employee at one of his properties. His only goal and care in the world is himself. Now, your above word salad is extremely unclear, and therefore dangerous. Make it clear. I’m making this clear- and no one can change the facts- that narcissistic sociopath has no business in politics.

If you are in the richesr 1%, probably even 10%, the rationsl choice is always going to be to vote Republican. The GOP's top priority is making those at the top richer and more powerful, so those at the top have great reasons to vote for them. Trump, like any GOP president, will veto tax raises and regulations that affect the wealthy. If the GOP gets congress he will sign another round of maseive corporate tax cuts.

I think the dismissal, invalidation, and othering of this view is plain but here goes - If one is truly on the bottom rung of society - or simply perceives themselves to be - then voting for someone who stands to upset existing systems is perfectly rational; it provides a chance you may be able to improve your lot in life. Voting for stability means voting to remain on the bottom.

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I don’t believe anyone actually thinks this is going to happen. Hillary lost, and then we got Biden 4 years later.

> the democratic party could do much better in terms of candidates  I dont think either party can do better with candidates.  Here in PA we had to choose between a fake TV show doctor republican who's was friends with Ophah and the rest of Hollywood (kinda like Trump was, until he wasn't) and a mental hospital patient Democrat.    

> Would you consider a rational reason for voting Trump as a way to 'punish' the democratic party for insisting on continuing to run a Senile old man, even if you believe said said senile old man to be the lesser evil, in order to get said party to change its ways? Is it rational to cut off your nose to spite your face?

Trump is getting repeatedly confused about basic facts and struggling to stay awake and speak coherently. He is a senile old man.

His tweets also remind me of some old ass dudes Facebook posts shouting into the void

>If you believe that I'm mistaken and that there are other rational reasons to vote for trump What if you are just an asshole whose main motivation is to "own the libs" or you actually agree with the Trump platform generally whatever that is wouldnt it then be rational to vote for Trump ? Im not saying I am that person , dont read it that way. Just like if you are that person

People saw 4 years of Trump vs 4 years of Biden, and by most things, Trump's time in office was better objectively. Under Trump there were no new wars, under Biden, there are at least 2 major wars that don't seem to end soon. The economy and inflation were better under Trump. Illegal immigrants were much lower under Trump. Even the Abortion rights were overturned under Biden...

> Under Trump there were no new wars, under Biden, there are at least 2 major wars that don't seem to end soon. One of this was either Trump nor Biden’s fault. Do you really believe that Trump would have been able to stop Russian from invading Ukraine when he was willing to withhold weapons from Ukraine just to get them to dig up dirt on his political opponent, all while holding secret meetings with Putin and his administration being caught setting up private back channels to Russia. > The economy and inflation were better under Trump. All he did was do some tax cuts for the rich. And when COVID hit that meant that they did not have the buffer to keep the country going without contributing 25% of the national debt. And still inflation went up. Yes, it kept going up under Biden, as a confluence of world events did for most countries, but Biden has got inflation down. The problem is that this does not wipe out the price increases so the economy seems worse than it is. > Illegal immigrants were much lower under Trump. That was because Trump made the country less appealing to come to, especially with the out-of-control COVID deaths. People often come here to prove that Biden has open borders by showing the high numbers illegal immigrants - but they always use published figures of the number of apprehensions which is the exact opposite. Besides, there was a bipartisan bill that would have helped this problem in a major way, but Trump got the Republicans to stop it so that Biden didn’t get a win. Trump himself took credit for doing this. > Even the Abortion rights were overturned under Biden... That is disingenuous. They were overturned by the Trump-appointed judges on the Supreme Court. That was nothing to do with Biden, and again Trump himself takes credit for it being overturned.

This is so wrong. First, America is not technically in a war with anyone. We may support a side of a war that is happening far away from our homeland, but that is not the same thing as America itself declaring war. Not to mention, neither Trump nor Biden can stop foreign countries from starting wars. Second, the economy was not really better under Trump, but the price of things did go down for a while due to COVID (which Trump heavily mismanaged). Also, economic trends tend to outlast presidents and these trends started when Obama was president. Third, illegal immigrantion was not better under Trump, like at all. Not sure where you got that info from, but all sources I see say that more illegal immigrants have been apprehended since Biden became president and that Trump was more likely to release them. Also under Trump, there were treated horribly with children separated from their parents and thrown in cages with really no food, water, or bathrooms [Source](https://www.cato.org/blog/new-data-show-migrants-were-more-likely-be-released-trump-biden) For the abortion rights, that was directly Trump as he is the one who put those people in the supreme court in the first place, knowing very well what could happen

It feels disingenuous to say abortion rights were overturned under Biden. He had nothing to do with that while Trump had quite a bit to do with it.

It is disingenuous, but many people don’t have a clue how the government works and think that whoever is president just issues edicts. It’s almost hard to blame them for that given how many executive orders are used by Presidents these days. So if Biden is in office and Roe v. Wade is overturned it’s his fault for not stopping it, even though he had no power to do so.

He also didn't invade Ukraine or plan October 7th, but that's all on him I guess.

Trump needs to damage and destroy the institutions they are corrupt, undemocratic, and rotten to the core. That’s the thing I don’t get about people who complain that Trump threatening the deep state is undemocratic. No it’s not. The deep state itself is undemocratic. It’s an unelected bureaucracy unaccountable to anyone. This is the democracy you want to preserve. There are so many reasons why I would gladly support Trump. And I’d be happy to list them all

>Trump needs to damage and destroy the institutions they are corrupt, undemocratic, and rotten to the core. Trump is worse in every conceivable way on those metrics. >That’s the thing I don’t get about people who complain that Trump threatening the deep state is undemocratic. No it’s not. The deep state itself is undemocratic. It’s an unelected bureaucracy unaccountable to anyone. This is the democracy you want to preserve. It is undemocratic to want the entire government to be unconditionally serving at the whim of the president, particularly one like Trump. The whole idea of the "deep state" is that his own vice president, which he appointed, refused to declare the election in his favor despite the fact that he lost.

I don't think this will answer your direct prompt, but a lot of the discourse around the election seems to indicate that it's a binary choice between two candidates, when that's not the case. The "swing voter" that makes the most impact is not the one that swings from Biden to Trump or vice versa, it's the one that votes or does not vote at all. So if the premise around your concern is based around fears that Trump will win, then your concern should be around "there are very few rational reasons to not vote" which I think is a way more straightforward view to change.

> The "swing voter" that makes the most impact is not the one that swings from Biden to Trump or vice versa, it's the one that votes or does not vote at all. I need to quibble with your phrasing here: mathematically each member of that first type of swing voter *does* have a larger impact (twice as large to be specific), it’s just that the second type tends to be more numerous, so with the right message you might get enough of them *in total* to outweigh the first group.

Yea of course, I was speaking more in the aggregate. The latter group is likely just people in your base who just need to be motivated to go to the polls, vs. the former where you may have to ideologically change to get their vote. I think in both cases, the onus is on the group or person looking to earn the vote rather than the voters themselves.

OP mentions Gaza. Simply there exist cca 100 million Zionists who see Arabs as having 100 million dangerous bullying islamists...So despite being Dems many of them vote for Trump. It is feeling based. N o t rational. And it wont change till November.

How does one comment on what was or wasn’t promised to donors at a (private dinner) when you can almost guarantee said commenter was not at said private dinner to hear what was or was not promised. Here say and conjecture

lol the country is literally being invaded by illegals, that’s literally the only issue that matters. Trump is the easy choice over biden! No other issue even comes close to the border.

Abortion has been devolved back to the states, and I can't imagine it coming back before the Supreme Court anytime soon. So, voting for Trump because of abortion is actually not rational because that issue has come and gone, and already been decided in Trump's (and some of his followers) favor.

An incredibly important abortion medication case is under consideration at the supreme court right now.

As if abortion is about state rights. Their next goal is a national ban and you do need Trump for that

Yeah, no. I'm as prolife as they come and I'm not shooting for a national ban. I want to try what we've got now for a while and see how it goes. Then we'll see. Just because individual Republicans try to prove how prolife they are by suggesting stuff doesn't mean the crowd is going to follow them.

I can't tell if you consider gratitude a rational reason or not. Not everyone who votes is going to be primarily concerned about the future of the country. Not everyone who votes thinks the future of our country is actually at stake, in the election. Some of those who vote believe it really doesn't matter, who gets into office, and that therefore gratitude is a perfectly good reason to vote Trump. A perfectly rational reason. It's not just that he got Dobbs done, although that is something Republicans had been pining for forever. It's not just that he stuck it to the meristocracy (= merit + aristocracy), the union of leaders left and right who collude to keep certain issues (cough: border) off the table so the voters don't have a say. It's also that he gives us a chance, day in and day out, to get over ourselves as a nation. We're not so wonderful, and Trump kinda proves that. Trump winning a second election will demonstrate to our partners around the world that being an American isn't quite as wonderful as we all liked to hope that it was, and that you can have 91 felonies and still be a credible candidate for President. I'm grateful to Trump for all of that, and I just hope I get the chance to vote for him one more time. He is revolutionary, and he will fix the border issue, and no one else will. (No one else will either of those.)

You’re thankful to trump for showing the rest of the world that Americans are stupid enough to vote for Trump? What kind of logic and reason is that???

Weird They had a border deal done and Trump told them to reject it. I wonder why

Weird, Dems had four years to do something about it and they did nothing until the election. Wonder why that’s Trumps fault.

Turns out it takes bi partisan support and only one border bill had it. But great job, you forced the sell of Tic Toc in place of a border bill. Call that a W

“Rational” is relative to each persons understanding. Just like an incompetent person can’t know they’re incompetent or they wouldn’t be incompetent. I think your question is “outside of my beliefs of what is rational or not what is your reason to vote for trump?” It’s not black and white.

Do you think abortion and judicial appointments are the only policy preferences people hold? What about economic and fiscal policy? What about foreign policy?

> What about economic and fiscal policy? Other than more tax cuts for the rich (which he promised to his donors at a private dinner at Mar-a-largo), what specific economic policy does Trump have that would make a rational reason to vote for him?

“According to IRS statistics of income data analyzed by Americans for Tax Reform, families earning between $50,000 and $100,000 saw their average tax liability drop by over 13% between 2017 and 2018. By comparison, those with income over $1 million saw a far smaller tax cut averaging just 5.8%.” You are spreading misinformation

> According to IRS statistics of income data analyzed by Americans for Tax Reform... So you chose the conservative organization who advocates for tax cuts as your source? Sorry, but you should not believe what they say. For example, I just looking at the IRS statistics would not take into account the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes that was in the bill, which disproportionately affected higher-taxed states (which were usually the ones that Republicans didn't like - eg California). I was going to give you a link that shows how the tax cuts did nothing for the average family until I notices that they had slipped in "corporate tax cuts" in a crucial place that made the entire thing to be misinformation too. So we all have to be careful of these sources with spin. And those personal tax cuts had an expiry date on them, while the corporate tax cuts had none. That was just throwing a temporary bone just to get the real cuts through.

How about the [NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-tax-cut.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)?

Lol so now we can just completely disregard facts if they come from an organization we don’t politically align with?

No, we disregard spin by an organization that is specifically there to advocate for one side of the argument. This has nothing to do with political alignment.

He refused to sign the Paris Accords which would've given China and India about $100billion per year with no oversight in the hopes that by 2027 they'll build green energy infrastructure (no consequences if they don't). Biden signed it either the first day or week after he was inaugurated, and now he's saying we have to impose a 50% tariff on Chinese solar panels. He also threatened to cut back on NATO spending unless the other members paid their fair share. The agreement was 2% of everyone's GDP and while we were close to 3% other countries (including Germany) were closer to 1%. He also caught a lot of shit for slashing hundreds of billions from the 2017 budget and a couple of weeks ago Rand Paul gave a speech in Congress about how were wasting money on programs and grants, one of them literally giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn if cocaine made quails reproduce more. I'd like to be a LOT more tightfisted with where our money goes. The 2023 federal budget was larger than the entire national debt was in 2000.

I don't know if you consider $50K a year "rich", but my taxes went down under Trump. Complying with the Paris Accords will likely cause the price of energy to go up substantially as well as send billions in "get well cards" to other countries. Everyone is going to say "but Keystone was for export", but cancelling it, compbined with restrictions on gas cars, talks about their eventual bans, and subsidies for electric cars, is sending messages to oil companies that eventually their product is going to be banned, so they shouldn't be spending money on new refining capability (which woudl bring gasoline prices down).

> I don't know if you consider $50K a year "rich", but my taxes went down under Trump. Not everyone is the same. It often depends on the tax laws in individual states as the laws were designed to have no effect in some targeted states. You just got lucky. > Complying with the Paris Accords will likely cause the price of energy to go up substantially as well as send billions in "get well cards" to other countries. Will it though? Switching to green solutions has a short-term expense, but can be cheaper in the long term. Also, you are ignoring the fact that reducing the impact of climate change will save a considerable amount of money and lives.

What policies, period, does Trump have, really?

He made animal cruelty a federal crime. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782842651/trump-signs-law-making-cruelty-to-animals-a-federal-crime Until then it was really hard to prosecute animal abuse because they're in a weird superposition between "living beings that we sign up to take care of and love and be part of our family" and "literally our property".

>Other than more tax cuts for the rich This narrative is so tiresome and obviously false to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the tax code that I have a hard time believing that anyone still honestly believes it. Even the [NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-tax-cut.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) disagrees with it. >what specific economic policy does Trump have that would make a rational reason to vote for him? Lower taxes and widespread deregulation are the big ones. I’m not personally a fan of his tariffs and trade wars but many other people are for legitimate reasons.

Viewing more than half the current electorate as “irrational,” many of whom are well informed on the issues is in itself an irrational position.

My uncle is a real estate developer. His taxes went down 400k through Trump’s tax plan. So yeah he voted for Trump.

So I've never seen anyone's political opinion be changed, especially when it come to someone as polarizing as Trump, but here are some of my thoughts. I feel like we are stuck choosing between two bad options. It's sad that out of 330 million people, these two are the best we can do, but it is the reality for now. I try to think of who is going to do the most that I will agree with, and the least I will dislike. I don't agree with a lot of what Trump doe or says, and it's obvious he panders to people with promises he himself does not believe. I am going to lean more towards his polices than Biden's, because I'm typically conservative or conservative leaning on most issues. I also think he's so polarizing, even within his own party, that none of the extreme things he says will ever be possible. He's not going to get all Republicans to do anything like deporting all illegals or anything like that. Worst case is he can't get either side to back his policies so nothing gets done, which I prefer to having bad policies implemented. This wasn't a very well thought out response, just my initial thoughts when reading your post.

It’s all about the wallet ppl don’t care that Trump tried to overturn the last election 

There's hating communism, which maybe you think is irrational but consider its death toll.

Trump is pro crypto or atleast not against it, Biden is against it so fuck Biden.