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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
There’s nothing wrong with having reservations. I wasn’t a Trump supporter and I didn’t vote for him, and he hasn’t experienced any real power yet so anything can happen. But I would be remiss to deny him credit for what he’s done so far. Sure, there are a number of picks I take issue with being a radical libertarian, but I understand the world we live in and the range of presidents we can expect and overall he seems to be making picks that could possibly dismantle parts of the government and how can a libertarian not get excited about that?
I’ve been wrong about him so far, so maybe it’s a good thing that people like Fred still think things are going to get really bad.
Fred = Rambo? Who knew? Such fun!
I am not sure what the point of this post is, except that the guy who said many times that Trump had no chance of winning appears to be trying to be relevant. I don’t know how brilliant Trump is but I think he is smart enough to know where not to look for guidance. Particularly uselessly vague guidance premised on insulting assumptions and laced with personal insults.
It’s way easier for illegals to vote than it is for dead people to vote (since the illegals just have to show up, while the dead people are, y’know, dead, so somebody has to vote for them).
Is this the new talking point? Y’all’s knack for all saying the same thing is remarkable.
Especially since they’re all just variations on, “Shut up.”
Yeah, but you’re not taking into account that the majority of illegal aliens probably want to keep their heads down and not draw attention to themselves.
I’m taking nominations for a definition of the emphasized word.
Why in just 3 days, @fredcole is going to restate his claim that American taxpayers pay for NORAD to track Santa – despite being called on it annually since 2010.
We’ll all have a better sense of what all of this means once Trump comes into office in January. Until then, everything he does is provisional — that’s not a criticism, just a description of his status as president-elect — so there’s little justification to get overly excited by the good or angry about the bad.
That said, the appointments have generally been good.
(Edit: Dammit, beat me to it at #97)
I see no value in telling a CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation in the service sector about human nature and how to get people to do things.
The problem with Obama was the longest job he has ever held is President. Good family man and a good speaker but really lacked experience. IMO, Trump has great people skills. Crazy like a fox. His sister who is a judge so I suppose no dummy knew not to try to win against him. The list is long of his political opponents who underestimated him.
Trump has been a manager of a major corporation. You don’t do that by not delegating and hiring good people. One only has to watch Trump around his employees to see.
This is a much more fleshed out answer than the troll of a response you posted earlier.
You think it takes a conspiracy to feed me the idea that the OP is pointless and arrogant? No, really, I had that idea all by my little old self. If other people said the same thing, that is probably because it’s obvious.
It has been fun to listen to people wrong for nearly two years on everything about the election now tell us what it means. Like the guy who explains what the stock market did but can’t predict tomorrow, it’s all vanity.
If the economy does well and we avoid disastrous wars, Trump wins in 2020, but it means nothing in 2024.
I hope for Constitutional governance, hope Congress and the president respect the rule of law. Haven’t had it much for the last eight years. Guardedly optimistic, which is way better than what Hillary the First’s reign would have me filled with, if I escaped the gulag.
Reminds me of global warming models.
Yes!! Optimism!