Polyamorous Trump vs. Cannibal Biden

What would it take for you to switch your vote?

Well, it’s election season, and now more than ever it seems like people see the alternative candidate as terrible enough that nothing would warrant changing their vote. Even people who don’t plan to vote at all refer to “not voting” as a candidate of sorts, to whom they seem faithfully married. It seems unfathomable, at this point, that anyone could truly be undecided. So, very unscientifically, I put this to the test. Borrowing a scenario from none other than Your Favorite President: could Trump (or Biden, for that matter) shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes?

I put some polls out on Twitter: one for Trump supporters (about 500 people), one for Biden supporters (about 1,600 people), and one for leftists who don’t intend to vote for Biden or Trump (about 400 people). Of course, the Biden voters were overrepresented because the largest share of my followers are liberals, and I’m a liberal myself. In addition, it’s possible that some of these polls were tainted by people voting in order to see the results, because I didn’t include a “see results” option (that’s what this article is for!) But hey, I said it was unscientific. Now let’s get down to business.

Trump Supporters: The Scenarios

I asked the Trump supporters if they would still vote for Trump in the following scenarios. I specified that these were not cumulative, they were all standalone, and you would obviously have to assume some degree of unilateral presidential power. Can you guess which of these were the biggest dealbreakers?

1. Trump comes out as 100% pro choice and makes all abortion laws invalid

2. Trump comes out in support of BLM and takes all military aid from Israel to Palestine

3. Trump provides tax incentives to encourage more women to be surrogatesTrump cuts police force by 30%

4. Trump removes the 2nd amendment

5. Trump comes out as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns

6. Trump divorces Melania and marries your least favorite female political activist

7. Trump divorces Melania and marries your least favorite female political activist, and gets into a 5-person communist polycule

Biden Supporters: The Scenarios

These were the scenarios I asked the Biden supporters, with the same premise.

1. Biden supports a 12-week national abortion ban (Note: several people yelled at me for presenting a scenario like this which “isn’t realistic,” clearly unaware of what scenarios would be posed next.)

2. Old footage of Biden from the 60s emerges where he's saying racial slurs

3. Old footage of Biden from the 90s emerges where he's saying racial slurs

4. Biden withdraws all aid from Israel

5. Biden ramps up support for Israel and sends US troops to invade Gaza

6. Biden bans a particular race or religion from immigrating to the US

7. Biden is revealed as keeping a list of all Jews in the US, only for curiosity

8. Biden plans to forcibly doxx all anonymous online accounts

9. Biden physically and emotionally abuses Major, his dog

10. Biden eats human meat from a cadaver

11. Biden single handedly rolls back the ACA and removes preexisting conditions protections

Anti-Electoral Leftists: The Scenarios

I also wanted to ask leftists who did not plan to vote for either candidate (but who are, I would assume, closer aligned with Biden than Trump) what it would take for Biden to earn their vote. Anyone who spends any time on Twitter will attest to the fact that there is a vocal group of leftists who frequently assert that they will never vote for Biden under any circumstances. I wanted to ask…any circumstances? Even crazy circumstances that will never happen? Here are the scenarios I asked about:

1. Biden enacts universal healthcare

2. Biden cancels all student loans

3. Biden withdraws all aid from Israel

4. Biden guarantees everyone a home for free, but the niceness of the home is based on how hot you are

5. Biden provides free food and food delivery by drones, paid for by billionaires

6. Biden tries GWB and Obama for war crimes

7. Biden offers reparations to Americans on a sliding scale of how oppressed they are (maximum $500K)

8. Biden enacts a Stalinist dictatorship

9. Biden enacts your personally preferred form of government but he eats one cadaver per week

10. Biden enacts your personally preferred form of government but he hunts one living person and eats them, the person is wealthy with bigoted views

11. Biden enacts your personally preferred form of government but he hunts one living person and eats them, the person is any random adult

Trump Supporters: The Results

Despite Trump bragging that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes, it turned out there were things he could do to lose votes. Of course, almost all of these things are impossible, but it seems like Trump magically removing the second amendment would be a dealbreaker for 80% of respondents, followed by support for BLM and Palestine, and cutting the police force by 30%.

More “culture war” personal scenarios, such as Trump identifying as nonbinary, marrying a liberal, or entering into a communist polycule didn’t move the needle quite as much.

Surprisingly, Trump taking a liberal stance on abortion or surrogacy wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Trump taking a liberal stance on guns, foreign policy or crime. This could be because as a liberal, very strong pro-life advocates are less likely to follow me in the first place, although one could also argue that my account is traditionally-minded enough not to deter them (Although I have no desire to legislate it, I regularly—too regularly, some critics argue—post about getting married young, being pro-monogamy and pro-marriage, and having some other fairly traditional values.)

Biden Supporters: The Results

Biden supporters were the largest cohort to respond to my poll, unsurprisingly. Many people in the comments pointed out that they were surprised that Biden supporters felt more strongly about scenarios like a rollback of the ACA or an immigration ban than Biden eating a human cadaver. Liberals who answered the poll felt their choices were pragmatic and rational—rolling back the ACA would kill many, eating a cadaver would kill nobody (provided Biden himself did not contract a prion disease from it.)

Interestingly, withdrawling support for Israel was not a dealbreaker to the vast majority of respondents; only 8% would stop voting for Biden over this. On the flip side, Biden ramping up support for Israel and involving US troops would negative affect the votes of 45% of respondents.

Personally, the only things on this list that would cause me to withdraw my own vote would be if I felt this one item made Biden worse than Trump overall. So if I were to answer this poll, the rollback of the ACA would probably be the only thing that I would withdraw my vote over—not because Trump wouldn’t want to scrap the ACA but because he would likely be incapable of it, and this scenario has Biden magically rolling it back with absolute power and no checks or balances. Again, I never said these scenarios were plausible!

Anti-Electoral Leftists: The Results

So: Trump supporters are most likely to detract over issues like guns, crime and Israel. Biden supporters are most likely to detract over healthcare, fascism, and Gaza. But what would be enough to make an anti-electoral leftist vote for Biden when they are currently confident they won’t vote? (Note: I didn’t exclude the option of voting third party, so some of these leftists might be open to voting, just not for Biden or Trump.)