To think that very few normal people are going to vote for a rapist. Any Trump supporters here? Can you explain your thinking?

[catagoryA]

I don't understand how this man can be a serious candidate. I didn't understand how it happened the first time. Surely normal people are not going to vote for him? But I know he does have supporters so I would love it if any American Trump supporter would be brave enough to come and explain their point of view, as it is totally incomprehensible to many of us...

Please be kind to people with different view points Mumsnet - lets try and hear them

For many people, Trump is a victimised unjustly accused man and they will stand by him. Any charges are viewed as wrong, and just further evidence of that. And it doesn’t help that Biden looks frail and unfit to run.

Americans will not care - it is a country where women's rights are low and getting worse and the red necks and religious extremists rule. Trump incited violence on the US Capitol building - huge crowds turned up to support him and trash the place leaving 5 people dead. A couple of rapes will not put them off.

I've been rewatching some trump footage to try getting my head around it and I think it's his utterly unshakable confidence that brings him these voters.
If you watch him, he just bulldozers conversations until people just crack.
He doesn't really answer questions, just kind of disputes them and makes a show of the journalists for asking.
He'll lick the barrell he's so low and other candidates are scared what he'll say because he's such a loose cannon. He humiliates those who oppose him and just waffles utter bollocks (something we have in common.) But he was constantly on TV, chatting shite, livestreaming his ineptitude gift wrapped in insults to anyone who wasn't a maga twat.
He wanted to make it clear he didn't want Russians or Ukrainians to be at war, but was almost salivating with glee at the idea of fucking up the middle East.
He's a blood thirsty idiot who I believe we've not heard even half of his despicable sexual exploitation of yet.
Yesterday his long time good friend vince mcmahon from the WWE has been accused of sex trafficking and that is some truly horrifying allegations that have been made public, I think it's fair you can judge a person on the company they keep.
glares at Prince Andrew

You should probably see your doctor about treating your Trump Derangement Syndrome.

How is he even getting a second chance to run as candidate anyway? It's bizarre.

In terms of those who will vote for Trump this November, I think there are three main groups:

1. The hardcore MAGA-hat wearers, who love Trump for his brashness, his outspokenness and his willingness to call a spade a spade. They will forgive him anything, including rape, because they don't believe he's guilty. They believe him when he says all the criticism of him is a witch hunt. They tend not to be the deepest thinkers or the most highly educated, but they turn up to his rallies in droves. They have American flags in their gardens. He speaks to them and for them and they love him for it. Drill baby drill, and Trump digs Coal are slogans they agree with. They don't want oil from Saudi Arabia, they want American oil and American jobs and they are anti-abortion, often religious and conservative.

2. Those who look at Trump's policies and prefer them to Biden's/the Democrats. Tough borders, energy independence, low taxes, cheap gasoline, etc. They don't really care who the Republican candidate is, but if s/he is going to deliver on the things they care about, that person will get their vote. Many of them actually despise Trump and think he's a clown, but they care more about the economy and the $ in their pocket than about who is sitting in the White House. Some of these people are dyed-in-the-wool Republican voters and would never vote Democrat, because the policies of Democrats don't align with their own values.

3. Independents who've watched what has happened over the past four years with Biden and who think things under Trump were better. One example: about 30,000 illegal migrants arrived in the UK via small boats last year, it is estimated that 2.5 million crossed the southern US border with Mexico. Trump stopped that flow of people. A lot of Americans feel that Trump's policy was better. They may not like him, in fact they may despise him, but they see Biden as weak, doddery and bad for America.

Well, I am neither American nor a Trump supporter but my stab in the dark is that both sides of the debate are completely polarized and we have lost any language of compromise and nuance, preferring instead to vilify and hunker down with our political tribes. And that seeds mistrust, in each other and institutions.

Trump supporters were told for years that they were a bunch of bible thumping, gun toting racists, they were as thick as two short planks. Although we know most voted because they felt like he offered a better solution for an unemployment crisis they felt had been ignored by Obama. Now, putting aside the legitimacy of such rationale or claims as it's beside the point to the thrust of my argument, those voter probably felt poorly represented and insulted by the way they have been represented in the media and denigrated by the other side and regarded as less than. They probably felt persecuted.

So, when Trump comes along and says, I've been poorly represented and persecuted by my political opponents, there's a legitimacy to the claim that may not have been there otherwise. They might extend him leniency that they wouldn't have otherwise, had they not been subjected to it themselves. I think, it's just a working theory.

People may vote against the alternative. France in 2002 when socialist voters supported Chirac, the UK in 2019 when Boris Johnson was chosen over Jeremy Corbyn, for example.

They'll vote for him because, even if he had been found guilty in criminal court, they'd just believe women lie and he didn't do it. They think women lying about rape is a bigger problem than rape because a lot of people's opinons are very heavily swayed by the societal narrative that men are trustworthy and women are lying and manipulative. And/or they just don't care about rape or about women.

People don't like inconvenient facts that disrupt their thoughts of an easy life.

I sat in a meeting once where someone admitted that they were deliberately doing things to upset another member of staff. At the end the manager chairing the meeting said "so we're all agreed that nothing malicious was intended." 🙄
When challenged they defended their "findings".

This meeting was referred to several times over the next few months as "proof" they'd "investigated" and found nothing malicious.

Yabu. People do not give a shit about women. Women and children are collateral damage in the lives of men. Why are we still seeing sex abusers and those who physically beat women on tv? In movies? Hearing their music played on the radio? Watching them play professional sports?

Less aggressive foreign policy than the Democrats or a typical Republican. Not just a useless Washington puppet who’s going to exactly what he’s told at all times by corporate America. I suspect many Americans are just sick of the lies, ever declining living standards of the working and middle classs, and have no faith in the false two party system to solve any of it.

Had Bernie Sanders been given the Democrat nomination, he may well have filled the gap now taken by Trump, but in a more grown up and effective fashion. But they hobbled his nonination to make way for the corrupt $100 million Clintons. So Trump is the only protest vote left available for people who want change.

I am a voter from NY . I find your comment about Biden false. Sure, if you read DM, you could believe this. Actually, Biden has decades worth of experience,is intelligent and competent. The USA is in a far better state economically now ( recent statistics show this ) than under Trump. Just to toss insults that are not factual is a Trump trait. That’s not reality.

There are Americans who think Trump has been sent by god to save their country - there's one born every minute, and you can't argue with dim.

Have you seen the video of Biden sniffing a girls hair, and banging on about how attractive a nine year old girl was.and these were at public events…..

Not much to choose between them, unfortunately.

Because he will Save America.

He wasn't found guilty of rape...sexual assault. But there were videos before of him harassing that reporter...they don't seem to care.

Biden is hardly "woke" and if you actually read about what being woke is then it isn't actually a bad thing.

Biden has led an economy with high inflation, and an open border that allows million of migrants into America. The economy was better under Trump, and he was willing to close the border. Trump is the marginally better choice, but it’s like choosing between a douche and a turd sandwich. Nikki Haley would be far preferable, and more likely to win the general election in November. I say this as a lifelong registered Republican.

I read somewhere that voting for Trump was the fury of stupid old white men and their entourage (trad wives and all) that USA "dared" to vote a black man for president.

It's still has an awful undercurrent of racism there amongst certain parts of the population.

The whole thing is horrendous, including the overturning of Roe V Wade.

I am a voter from NY . I find your comment about Biden false. Sure, if you read DM, you could believe this. Actually, Biden has decades worth of experience,is intelligent and competent. The USA is in a far better state economically now ( recent statistics show this ) than under Trump. Just to toss insults that are not factual is a Trump trait. That’s not reality.

Thanks @Danja2010 for the voice of reason.

There will be a variety of reasons including

His supporters believe that all the charges are a Democrat conspiracy, the courts are corrupt and therefore are not true.

Or they think a republican presidency is more important than what trump did wrong.

Or they think that Biden and the democrats are worse.

Or they don't care.

Trump won't win.

His MAGA supporters will follow him no matter what. They don't care whether he raped a woman. That's the plain ugly truth, they simply don't care.

But the independents and the conservative Republicans do care and his appeal to them is decreasing by the day.

He's manoeuvred himself into an impossible position; to keep his popularity with MAGA he has to be extreme in his behaviour and use his defendant Trump status. But the more he plays to this crowd, the more he alienates the independents. He can't win the presidency on MAGA followers alone.

This verdict is the beginning of the end for Trump.

I am completely baffled about how on earth he was elected the first time. This time it is just incomprehensible!

Op is your title correct?