I don’t like writing about Donald Trump. But he actually seems like he could be the Republican nominee now. So I figure I should say something. How about this: hahahah! No, that won’t do. As I’ve pointed out, if the economy goes south next year, Donald Trump could easily become our next president. So none of that. But let’s start by considering why I think that Trump could really win.

First, there is this business of Trump signing the pledge to support the Republican nominee. Brian Beutler is correct, Donald Trump Has the Republican Party in the Palm of His Hand. His point is that Trump said what he got for signing it was the “assurance that I would be treated fairly.” Sure, that means that Trump can break his promise for any reason at all, because “fair treatment” is a vague standard. But it also means that Trump thinks he can actually win if the Republican Party doesn’t mess with him by keeping him off the ballot and so on.

Second, there is this recent SurveyUSA poll that shows that Donald Trump would beat all the Democratic candidates. There are various reasons to question this poll. To begin with: it is one poll and that means nothing. What’s more, it is forever until the primaries, much less the general election. Does anyone think that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be beating up on Donald Trump and pointing out that he is a sexist, a racist, and a trust fund baby? But most telling of all: Trump gets 44% or 45% against all the Democrats. That means that Trump just has only 45% of the people thinking favorably about him right now — without any attacks from the left.

But as Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog pointed out, there are other problems. The poll claims that almost of third of Hispanics would vote for Trump over Clinton. Even more telling, a quarter of African Americans would vote for Trump over Clinton. And most telling of all (this isn’t in Steve M’s article), only 44% of poll respondents think that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. A staggering 22% say Biden will be the nominee, even though he isn’t officially running. The thing about Biden: conservative media have been pushing him — hard: “Clinton is dead, the Democrat’s only chance is to bring in Biden” — who the conservatives think is a joke and privately think would be easy to beat. The whole poll just reeks of sample bias.

But I love the poll. As I’ve been very clear about: of all the Republicans running for president, Trump would be the best if he actually got elected. But the main thing is that as long as the economy doesn’t really take a nosedive, I think Trump will be a very weak candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee. But this poll will give Trump a great weapon against those who say that he can’t win in a general election. And that is, ultimately, the only argument that the establishment has made against him. I’m sure they aren’t too keen on his position on Social Security and trade deals. But that’s not what they are willing to complain about publicly.

The way I see it is that good news for Trump right now is good news for America. He makes it far less likely that we will have a Republican president in 2017.