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Don’t Overstate Donald Trump’s Victory
Many pixels have been spilled and there’s been much talk in the last six weeks about Donald Trump’s victory and the larger implications, how everything has shifted, and the ways in which America has changed forever.
Slow down.
First, I heard the same thing in 2004 after George W. Bush was reelected. This was supposed to be a generational shift, setting up Republican dominance for a generation. (Yeah, not so much.) Then I heard in again in 2008 and 2012. Those elections changed everything and America as we knew it was over. (Yeah, not so much.) Indeed, coming into the 2016, I heard much fretting from conservatives about how, because of demographic changes, there probably would never be another Republican president. Demography is destiny, after all. (Yeah, not so much.)
Now I’m hearing it again. The Democrats as a party are over. They’ve lost the white working class forever. They’re now limited to a few enclaves on the coasts. And so on and so on. There’s a natural tendency to think that everything has changed. Well it hasn’t. Donald Trump scored an upset to be sure, but he didn’t win big.
Yes, he won a majority of the America
a majority of those who voted
a plurality of those who voted
just enough people in the right combination of states to eek out a victory. But despite Trump’s claims, his was not an “historic electoral landslide.” He ranks 46th out of 58 in percentage of the electoral vote and far below the historical average.
And like it or not, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by two million votes. Ah, yes, but he won 30 states! And look at that county-by-county map! It’s a sea of red! America has embraced Trump. Yeah, the thing is that those blue islands are where all the people are.
I count 11 states, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Alaska, where Trump’s vote total was less than 769,743. What’s significant about that number? Well, 769,743 is the number of votes Trump got in just Los Angeles county. Trump got more votes in that one county, which he lost by 50 points, than he got in any of those 11 states.
So what’s my point in mentioning all this?
First, there wasn’t some grand Trump earthquake that changed everything. He was running against the most unpopular woman and America. And together, Trump and Clinton were so unpopular that two million people didn’t even vote on the presidential line. Did lots of disenfranchised Rust Belt white people turn out for Trump? They sure did. Some 62 million people voted for Donald Trump. But some 74 million people voted against him.
Second, while it didn’t determine the winner, the popular vote is not without significance. One of the things we learned from the 2000 election is the symbolic importance of the popular vote. And 54 percent of the people came out to vote, voted against Trump. What does that mean? It means he doesn’t have much of a mandate. It would behoove the new President to tread lightly, to think of the 54 percent of folks who voted against him, and to be the President of the whole nation.
Am I suggesting he go all squishy? Certainly not. But when you poke people in the eye over and over, you’re going to create problems for yourself. And if you’re going to be the President of the whole nation, you’d do well, especially after this very contentious election cycle, and an electoral victory where 74 million people voted against him, not to be intentionally antagonistic.
I suggest President Trump learn from the example of his predecessor. Barack Obama had a much larger mandate. For eight years he engaged in scorched earth tactics. He spit in people’s faces. He tried to force through legislation, without trying to compromise, without trying to reach out to the tens of millions of people who voted against him.
And what did he get for his troubles? A shattered party and a legacy that’s in ashes.
Do I expect Donald Trump to heed this suggestion or anything similar? No, of course not. A man who brags about the size of the penis in front of a national debate audience doesn’t do modesty.
But if he were wise, he might consider it.
Published in General
In Charleston county SC there was a referendum this past election for an additional half cent sales tax. Of course it was only on our ballot not the surrounding counties or Mexico or Canada and none of the citizens of those places could vote for or against the tax. My point? Los Angeles county has 10 million people a third noncitizens. Why should they determine a National election? There are now cities in California that no longer speak English for heaven sakes.
Obama thought the same thing.
It needs saying that this comment is perfectly true. Odd fixations, indeed.
Yes.
Ultimately we should be honest about him whether it “helps” or not. If he’s right praise him; if he’s wrong criticize him. That’s what intellectually honest people do. Ignoring or dismissing his flaws because it might help the Democrats is not good for either the country or the conservative movement, but neither is focusing on his flaws to the exclusion of everything else.
I find it amusing that, as we stand here one day after the Electoral College vote made it official, we are still getting pronouncements from professional and amateur pundits alike that Donald Trump is getting the politics all wrong. (Please note I said politics and not policy. Those are two separate things.) They’re like the “expert” fan sitting in the stands yelling at the manager. “You idiot! That’s not a bunting situation!” even after the play works.
To extend the sports analogy the Electoral College vote are the points you put up on the board and the only ones that count. You can out hit your opponent in baseball, out run them in football and out shoot them in basketball and still lose. It’s all statistical noise in the end. The only question that matters is, “Did you win?”
And winning does give you a mandate. There’s no magical number you have to reach or margin needed greater than 1.
Finally, if one is going to frame an argument that another man’s humility is called for, perhaps it isn’t best to suggest that wisdom is found in listening to the one making that argument. Humility is best taught through example.
No one expects a 100% perfect situation when the country is and has been divided right down the middle for years.
You can divide up who won the popular vote all you want, and decipher why people voted or didn’t. What you Fred, and Bill and Hillary, and Huma, and Podesta and others don’t get is, the rest of the country also rejected the progressive politics on a much bigger scale than just the presidency. Republicans gained in the House, Senate, gained governors, legislators, county commissioners, dog catchers, mosquito sprayers – across the board the change was very obvious. No more business as usual – a full on tea party, take no prisoners event.
It had nothing to do with fake news, Russians or any other excuses. In my little town, there was just about a complete replacement of all the good ol boys (and girls) with new blood and it was sorely needed.
I disagree. Recent history shows that unless he is either a Carteresque screw up or a Reaganesque success, he’ll get reelected in 2020 and replaced by a Democrat in 2024.
Actually, no, they lost a net 6 seats in the House and 2 in the Senate. That just wasn’t enough to lose control.
That’s nothing new. America is a diverse place. There have always been communities where English is not the dominant language.
I’ve greatly approved of his cabinet, but mostly because that cabinet so far seems to support a lot of my more reformed-minded ideas. Whether they can pull it off is a big order. Thing is …
If he pull it off, it’ll cause serious ripples that will bring a Democrat congress in 2018 and a hotly contested election in 2020. His advantage this year was how awful Clinton was. His advantage in 2020 will be incumbency, but Trump will still be Trump with all of his flaws. A leopard can’t change his spots. He’ll fall to a left-wing populist.
If he doesn’t pull it off, he’ll look like a typical politician — all promise and no deliver. For a normal politician this is a small character flaw. For an outsider decrying politics as usual this is a liability. Also, he’ll still be Trump. Again, I predict four years. I’ll bet you a steak dinner on that.
LBJ liked to talk about the size of his penis but he didn’t do any nationally televised debates. I suppose it was best that he left some things for his successors to do.
I don’t think we can say one way or another right now. All party politics are driven by vote totals. While each party has a historical core philosophy (top down – Democrats, bottom up – Republicans) in practice they adopt policies adverse to those philosophies when vote totals require them to.
Trump is a complex “top down” guy. As a business owner he wants to set policy and mission and control resources and strategy, but experience has taught him that success requires subordinate freedom in dealing acting tactically. So he sees himself as creating a national framework within which individual initiative will prosper. He sees USA Inc competing globally and in need of strategic cohesion that can only come from the top.
The Republican Party has been an instrument of ideology but is not the source of ideology. If Trumpism gets and maintains vote totals, the Republican Party will be the party of Trump, just like it was the party of Reagan until the Bushes eradicated the voting support for Republicans.
One may well ask why the Republican Party successfully limited Tea Party success while succumbing to Trump? Vote totals, plain and simple. The Tea Party had no single unifying personality that could command and control the vote. Trump has. If he continues to do so, it will be a “sea change.” But we do not know that yet.
It worked out pretty well for President Obama and the Ruling Class, and not so well for their victims.
Obama achieved one single policy goal of his administration and has presided over the utter electoral decimation of his own party. I don’t think reality comports with your vision of it.
Going to great lengths to defend yourself here, I see. It doesn’t help your credibility. Clearly you are hostile to all things Trump, which is your right, but you can’t expect to sway people if you get all the basics wrong.
Yes Fred. You are creating problems for yourself by misrepresenting events that are easily researched. Then you make statements in the comment section that are easily disproved, and hide behind cute technicalities as your version of rebuttal.
It is this kind of rhetoric that has many Ricochet members canceling, including me, The Daily Shot because it is filled with half-truths, inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Kagen and Sotameyer are still on the Supreme Court. Obamacare still stands, as do a whole lot of other policies that are going to be difficult to completely obliterate.
I think it’s the movie Married to the Mob that starts with a killer getting released from prison after 20 years and someone asks him if it was worth it, and he says “The Guys still dead, isn’t he?”
More checklistist nonsense from the people that Peggy Noonan warned us about. He grew the federal payroll and further corrupted the student loan program. He subjugated the universities and got them to hire more people to install kangaroo courts. He put down the tea parties through abusive of power the IRS. He gave away the management of the internet. He co-opted social media companies to become propaganda arms of the government. All this increased the power of the ruling class. Whether those are items in your “policy goal” checklist is irrelevant to the actual policies and their malevolent effect on the people and our system of government.
Trump did all that I hoped for by shutting down the Clintons. Whatever else happens in the next four years will be gravy.
Excellent analogy. It’s for things like this that Ricochet needs a bookmark feature for comments.
What so many NeverTrumpers like Fred miss, is actually the quality of the Trump voter. This is what is unprecedented. They have rejected the propaganda media, they have elected DJT to “kick over the table” as Gingrich recently said. It’s a movement, and this movement is being further empowered by the nevernaysayers. They are just outing themselves as the opposition, and will lose yet more influence.
What is worthy of note is the fact that these voters voted for him despite the NeverTrumpers at NR and Weekly Standard, the entire MSM including, half of Fox News, the Democratic Party with key allies in the GOP, the relentless attack ads paid for by globalist donors, the rest of the world globalist society, a poison pill candidate focusing one one or two vulnerable states with the express purpose of thwarting Trump, and last and perhaps least, Fred Cole himself and his influential and widely distributed Daily Shot, lining up against him.
Instead of recognizing the movement and the passion and viability of it, many are consoling themselves with pretty lies and rationalizations, desperately clinging to the phantom of abstractions.
And all of that led to his parties utter electoral decimation, the complete takeover of state governments by Republicans, the loss of the Senate and the election of Donald Trump. Is that what you want to happen to Republicans in 4-8 years?
Do you think absent Hillary’s awfulness as many of the “quality” people you talk about would have voted for Trump?
I agree about voter demographics (urban :s rural as always), but not with this. Only Republicans think this way, which is a recipe for defeat.
More to the point, this is simply how elections work. The majority gets its policies enacted. It wasn’t a problem until the voters of one party stopped caring about the rights of others and the rule of law.
SJW’s are passionate too. They’re still a minority.
Don’t mistake excitement for a mandate. That’s how the Democrats got where they are today.
In hindsight, I can see how this can be misinterpreted. I am not endorsing do-nothing-ism. We most certainly do need to repeal Obamacare and take a sledgehammer to the regulatory state. What I was saying is that we need to remember that there will be pushback, and we need to be prepared to make the case that what we’re doing is right, and not just dismiss dissenting voices as, “Media elites.”
I didn’t call them “quality people” as you imply. I said the quality of the voters, and this would naturally exclude the reluctant Trump voters. However, many reluctants will become supporters. It’s already happening. I see in myself, who was once reluctant and now I’m a supporter. It’s a fight with the media propaganda and yes, globalists, the old guard who are losing influence and faux conservatives. Real conservatives are mostly reluctant Trump voters IMO, and I respect them much, much more than the nevers.
Consider this. If Republicans entirely ignored the interests of Democrats when they could (also pretending Republicans are generally interested in limited and representative — not bureaucratic — government), then they could eliminate several agencies and powers. So if Democrats regained control because of angry voters and ignored Republican interests as usual, it wouldn’t matter as much as before because Republicans had eliminated the powers Democrats would otherwise use against us.
Even if Democrats regained popularity for a decade in backlash, Republicans would benefit in the long run by dismantling the Leviathan.
I don’t much care what happens to professional Republicans. I care what happens to we the people. If there is a vague correlation between the two, now and then, I might care about that. But I’m not going to make the livelihoods of professional Republicans my primary goal.
What do you think would happen to “we the people” if the Democrats gained the electoral dominance that Republicans have enjoyed over the last two cycles?