The Absolute Worst Argument for Why Trump Won’t Win

I’m routinely gobsmacked by how many people — including influential Democrats — tell me that they can’t imagine a victory by Donald Trump in November. I’m even more astounded by their reasoning.

Most of them don’t parse the economy and augur an end to the “vibecession” that’s distorting assessments of the country’s welfare under Joe Biden. They don’t talk about abortion rights and women’s votes.

They say some version of this:

Americans won’t be that reckless with the country’s future and won’t stoop that crudely and cruelly low. When it’s finally time to cast ballots — when the full weight of that decision hits them — they’ll realize that whatever their disappointment in the current president, it’s no match for the disgust that the former one elicits. They’ll recognize, however grudgingly, that Trump is an unserious person, unfit for a serious country.

You could file that perspective under idealism.

I call it amnesia.

It’s a dangerous reprise of the (greater) confidence that Democrats felt about Hillary Clinton back in 2016. And look how that turned out.

I understand that this time is different, in no small part because of Trump’s conviction last week. He’s a bona fide felon now. Back in 2016, it was somewhat easier for Americans itching to cast a protest vote to see the vilest of Trump’s behavior and the most vicious of his remarks as theatrical provocations, as a flamboyant show of defiance that wouldn’t amount to all that much. The line between mischief and malice could be blurry, at least if you didn’t care to look closely.

Eight years later? There’s nothing blurry about Trump. There’s no mistaking or minimizing the Nazi echoes in his talk of immigrants poisoning the blood of the country or his reference to his critics on the left as vermin. There’s no shrugging off his invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade NATO allies who didn’t pay their dues and his pledge to use the presidency to take revenge on his enemies.