What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

Steve Vladeck explained the decision to CNN.

IL removes Trump from ballot for insurrection clause

Has it do not see them ruled in favour yet and no way in he'll they will as this thread has said time and time again. No chance of him winning anyway

Every cloud .....

My tongue was firmly in my cheek for sure.

Yep, that's exactly what SCOTUS are doing.

Leaving Bragg's case, universally acknowledged as the weakest case, with the potential of Trump defeating it, resulting in him spewing how not just that case, but all the cases are invalid.

Infuriating.

Trump has had a very good week so far unfortunately:

• walloped Haley in SC and Michigan
• The SC has taken up his immunity claim which basically torpedoes his most serious criminal case until post-election
• Solidified even further his control over the RNC
• Mitch McConnell stepping down, no doubt to be replaced by a proper ring-kisser

Maybe the Stormy Daniels trial will be the next speed bump for him.

Yes, that's the reality.

The one thing I really don't get is why the DoJ had to wait until 2023 to bring the indictments. Surely they could, and should, have gotten ahead of the political calendar and given themselves space to head off all the Trump delay tactics.

Of course no-one could have foreseen the Georgia prosecutors going all amateur hour with their personal relationships screwing up the case down there!

Winning 70-30 in a contested primary? That's a landslide. So yes, net positive.

Trump doesn't need to expend any more energy or political capital on the primary at this point, he's a lock, it's done. He can start campaigning in the general right now - and is.

I'm guessing that the US DoJ wanted to really get its ducks in a row in terms of prosecuting Trump. The criminal cases against Trump seem like total slam dunks but the semantic and technical defenses Trump's representation would use have to be taken into consideration, and so all evidence and testimony must be watertight. That takes time to gather.

The hush money trial is set to begin late next month. I read that it's a Class E felony under the US system, which can carry various sentences upon conviction but prison time is certainly one of those. If he's convicted, there, then he's officially a criminal. Whatever else he might be convicted of from that point on would really just be degrees of the thing. All these people who said they'd change their mind about him if convicted of a crime, they may get an opportunity to do that before the Summer is out.

@Quin_Dub

Yes, but what aspect of the opinion were Trump's legal team able to challenge, such that the US Supreme Court decided to actually hear the case? I've heard news pundits saying the legal opinion of the DC Court was watertight.

You are confusing the DOJ with the Democrat Party. They are independent of each other despite what soem here would say.

Trump has unique vulnerabilities to be sure. I doubt we have ever in our lifetimes seen such a polarizing figure.

But....but...but....all those things were true in 2016 and he won. They were true in 2020 (at which point voters knew what an awful president he was) and he got 74m votes.

So we shouldn't be complacent or dismissive. And he's running against Biden, who has terrible, indeed historically awful, favourability ratings and indeed faces his owns unique challenges. Right now, the election is 50/50 (if you want to bet on it, you can back Trump at evens and Biden at 9/4, so the betting markets have a clear opinion). So Trump can definitely win - we shouldn't let our distaste for him blind us to that.

I don't think the legalities actually matter (and given the terrible track record of Trump's lawyers to date, I have little doubt he will lose at the SC). The politics is what actually matters i.e. delaying the trial until after the election.

Zero, not small. Zero.

What poster here has dismissed Trump's winning? I don't recall anyone. However, what people rightly point out is that Trump has been effectively campaigning for the last 3 years and yet still faces a not insignificant portion of his party (40% in the last primary) that doesn't want him.

Of course, the vast majority of those will vote for him as the GOP nominee, but it raises the question as to how he is going to win over independents, and those who opted to vote for Biden last time when he couldn't convince his party.

And yes, Trump got 74m votes, but lost by something like 7m. What has he done to get those voters on his side? Nothing. The only play they seem to have is that Biden is terrible. But al that does it then get people to try to work out which is the least bad option.

And any independent or critical thinker can see that whatever faults Biden may have, they are nothing compared to the faults that Trump has.

And therein lies the real problem for Trump. He won in 2016 based largely on a desire for something new (which he isn't anymore) and a huge amount of anti-HC sentiment. While Biden may not be popular, he is not the divisive figure that HC was. In fact, Trump has now taken on that mantle.

The recent results seem to suggest that the polls are overestimating the support for Trump.