Yes, I hear it too. The screams off in the distance “stollen mandate!” Expect the tom tom drums of MAGAn outrage to be pounding out this theme in the days to come. The simple truth of the matter is that Donald Trump jumped the gun on Election Night, as always. And as expected he would do. This time, he got it right that he won, but he did not get it right that there was any “mandate” and there certainly was no landslide. Late votes are still being counted and when the accounts are reconciled Trump may not be sitting as pretty as he glowingly reported he was on November 5.
The electorate in this country is divided. That’s not a new observation. The misinformation in this country has poisoned peoples’ minds. The legacy media is terrified to stand up to Trump so they cater to him and always have. You saw Joe and Mika make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and no I don’t know if they brought him pink and red Starbursts but it would not surprise me one iota. If Joe Scarborough put his testicles in a jar and handed it to Trump, it wouldn’t surprise me. Trump might as well wear a ring and everybody start kissing it. I would appreciate that level of honesty and transparency, in fact. He’s a mob boss, let’s treat him like one. But he’s not a mob boss with any kind of a mandate and zero “landslide.” That’s pure fiction.
Unlike Obama and Bush, moreover, Trump did not win a majority of the national popular vote. Though it looked like he was over 50 percent on Election Night, the steady drip of late ballots has eroded his percentage to (currently) 49.87 percent, with further slippage very likely before all the votes are in.
Trump’s win in the Electoral College was more impressive, though his 316 electoral votes were less than Obama’s in either of his elections and just above Biden’s in 2020. In Pennsylvania, the “tipping point” state that clinched a second term for Trump, his margin over Harris was 1.8 percent, not exactly a landslide.
So by any measure, the claim of an “unprecedented” mandate simply isn’t true. Trump won a very close election and will govern a country where a near majority of people have voted against him three times. Yes, his party won control of Congress as well. But in the House, the margin of Republican control (with three contests still undecided) is so small that Trump’s appointment of three representatives to Cabinet positions could make any controversial votes extremely difficult for House Speaker Mike Johnson until special elections are held, and very difficult even then.
Given that perilous hold on power, Trump might want to reconsider his current strategy of ruling Washington like a devastated and occupied enemy city with a Cabinet largely composed of men and women who appear to hate the departments and agencies they are supposed to oversee, plus a governing plan that may rely on testing the tolerance of the federal judiciary for totally unparalleled assertions of supreme presidential powers. And Trump’s MAGA base should also cool its jets a bit. There’s certainly a degree of triumphalism in the air that really isn’t justified by the election returns.
They’re dancing in the streets. MAGA believes they’re ruling supreme. No. Trump won by an unimpressive amount and he’s still the unpopular contender he has always been. Different people have been trying to reason with him, to no avail. Karl Rove did an op/ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that said, “no president has infinite sway, no matter how remarkable his electoral victory. Second-term chief executives tend to have even less.” And there was no remarkable electoral victory. 250,000 votes in just three states would have put this election in Kamala Harris’s column and not in Trump’s.
But you can’t tell the TV mogul any of this. He’s going to keep nominating catastrophic candidates and the hearings will make for interesting cable TV. That much we can depend on. Karl Rove also said,
Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr. Trump before he’s even in office. The price for all this will be missed opportunities to shore up popular support for the incoming president. But at least it’ll make great TV.
Rove thinks Trump could have played his hand differently, “shored up popular support,” but I don’t. Trump is a one-trick pony. And that trick is outrage. Gone are the days when Paul Ryan would mistily proclaim that Trump “becoming presidential” was an achievement that would manifest at any moment. It never happened. It never will. It never can.
So America will have four years of a complete shitshow and circus. Or maybe less. Donald doesn’t look well. Which Big Mac will be the decisive one and Lady Karma teams up with cholesterol for a decisive bout?
The man’s a wreck and America is torn into warring camps. This is the Civil War redux. The Civil War killed 2% of the population of that era and Trump’s already killed 1.1 million Americans by flubbing COVID. We are at each other’s throats. The comparisons will keep coming.
Donald Trump THREE time loser of the popular vote.
Out of three tries.
Great article, Ursula. Really appreciating Politizoom in these darkest of days.
So only half the country are suicidal morons.
Half the voters. Half the country didn’t even vote.
Maybe they’ll demand a recount? I’d like that. But NO media will EVER announce that tyrant lost popular vote and does NOT have a mandate. The media is now 100% magat, fux lite.
“The misinformation in this country has poisoned peoples’ minds.”
Yes! And on that note, everybody should read “The Perpetual Hamster-Wheel of Stupidity”by Contentious Otter.
We have to wise up, and fast, because if we continue in our present dazed state — we ain’t seen nothing yet.