Trump didn’t get a mandate even though he keeps saying he did. Here’s why that matters.
Trump got one of the narrowest presidential wins in the history of our country. All of the votes are not yet counted, thanks to California’s excruciatingly slow counting process. But, as of November 25th, Trump is winning the popular vote with only 49.997 percent and is anticipated to fall lower than that as the vote count continues. His margin over Harris is 1.6 % now and expected to fall to 1.5 %, which is the third smallest popular vote victory since the presidential election of 1888.
Why does this matter? Senators, who are elected by voters in their entire state, will need to factor in the reality that Trump did not win a landslide victory no matter how much Trump tries to characterize his win as a mandate. It was not. Republican Senators should be more emboldened to stand up to Trump knowing that their constituents will not only support them if they do so, but will expect them to do so. Certain Republican senators will want to be more moderate and less extreme if they hope to get re-elected: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell especially since he is not returning to Congress, as well as others in states that are more purple instead of strongly red.
Harris lost because 10 million “reliably Democratic” voters did not bother to vote. She lost to “the couch.” more than she lost to Trump. It is possible that a strong male Democrat who clearly differentiated himself from Biden and knew how to communicate to working Americans had been selected in an open primary, Trump would have lost to that contender. Probably by a slim margin. Senators understand how close this election was and how tenuous their wins were. And that matters.
We just saw an example of how that matters. Matt Goetz was Trump’s choice for Attorney General. But Goetz is a sleazebag. He was detested by his fellow lawmakers in the House on both sides of the aisle. He also broke the law by having sex with a minor (although he may not have known the age of the girl involved) and taking girls he paid for sex across state lines (trafficking) and was into sex fueled drug parties. Goetz had been investigated by the DOJ. The case was not indicted for reasons that were not central to the facts of the case. The House Ethics Committee then took up the investigation and was about to issue their report when Goetz quit the House. By leaving his job Goetz kept the report from coming out. Makes you really want to know what is in that report. Right? He is a real scumbag of a human being. So of course Trump picked him to run the Department of Justice. That would have been a major middle finger to the DOJ. But Trump did not get his wish.
Matt Gaetz, who faced a torrent of scrutiny over allegations of sex trafficking and drug use, abruptly withdrew his bid to become attorney general on Thursday in the first major political setback for President-elect Donald J. Trump since his election this month.
Mr. Gaetz has consistently denied the allegations, but his prospective nomination ran into trouble in the Senate, where Republicans were deeply reluctant to confirm someone to run the same Justice Department that once investigated him on suspicion of sex trafficking an underage girl, even though no charges were brought.
The collapse of Mr. Gaetz’s prospective candidacy just 16 days after the election appeared to be the earliest such failed cabinet pick in modern history and underscored the haphazard way that Mr. Trump has gone about assembling his new administration. He picked Mr. Gaetz almost on a whim last week without extensive vetting, knowing that allegations were out there, but essentially daring Senate Republicans to accept him anyway. (NYT)
TRUMP IS OLDER AND MORE TIRED
Trump is older, more tired, and even more unfocused these days than he used to be. He doesn’t look well. He led a chaotic administration in his first administration. He is 8 years older now and by the time this term is finished, he will be 12 years older. Sure, he made a lot of threats to indict people like Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Barack Obama, General Mark Milley, General Kelly and many others, but people would have to make up the basis for a criminal indictment. That doesn’t work in our fact based court system even with Trump appointed judges. You ain’t got nothing if there are no supporting facts. Trump will almost certainly make the lives of his “enemies” more miserable, complicated and expensive, by forcing them to get lawyers to fight bogus investigations. He knows he can just talk about an investigation and get the result he wants because so many Americans don’t get real news anymore
TRUMP ALREADY GOT A LOT OF WHAT HE WANTED JUST BY GETTING ELECTED
Trump has already gotten almost everything he wanted when he ran for president for the second time just by getting elected:
1) The end to his legal trials. (The one exception is the 34 count felony conviction in Manhattan, but while he’s in office he won’t need to worry about it and who knows if Trump will make it to the end of his term as president.)
2) An even more entrenched oligarchy, a bunch of rich buddies who pretend to love him so they can get their goal of de-regulation and grow their massive companies even bigger. The same bunch of guys he wanted to accept him when he was in the world of real estate in New York and who made fun of him instead, are sucking up to him now. Sweet revenge.
3) The opportunity to get even richer himself through massive corruption as president. Just wait. That is coming.
4) Proof that he is loved after all. Trump was always searching for approval from the father who undermined his self-esteem. He didn’t even have to use the 12th Amendment to win. He can tell himself millions of Americans love him.
WHAT TRUMP IS LIKELY TO DO
What the Trump administration is most likely to do:
- Make the lives of immigrants miserable with their round ups and internment camps. But even there they will get serious push back from companies that need these workers doing jobs like machinists, construction workers, fruit pickers, grocery store workers, restaurant busboys, support in the entertainment industry etc.
- Try to have bogus indictments of Trump’s enemies, but they would have to make up the cause of action and the legal system will throw out baseless criminal indictments.
- Try to deconstruct the government and succeed to some extent there, but I doubt they will totally eliminate the “deep state” because they need these experts to actually run the government while Trump’s appointees show up on Joe Rogan’s podcasts. (Trump is choosing communicators who look good on TV and will be loyal to him.)
- Force Ukraine to give up territory to appease Putin and end the conflict in Europe so he can take a victory lap.
- Damage our relationships especially with our democratic allies and pull our country back from engagement abroad for the most part.
- Cut back the already limited role of the national government on our educational system. State legislatures control 92% of the budget already. The federal government controls 8%. Trump’s appointee will try to cut back on that 8%.
- Pretend that climate change does not exist leaving our country and the world more vulnerable and the fossil fuel industry moguls happier with their profits.
- Deconstruct media by attacking it and insisting it is fake news and his version of reality is real news even though it is not. Elon Musk is even now threatening to buy out MSNBC. If he succeeds in getting it he will turn it into rightwing media as he did with Twitter becoming X.
- Trump will most definitely create chaos and damage many systems that are currently working well, such as Medicare, by allowing incompetent people to run agencies with the goal of making cuts and deconstructing those agencies. His loyalists will make cuts without worrying about consequences, throwing thousands out of work and replacing them with toadies for Trump. Our government will be micromanaged by a man who is losing his mental capacity- probably has Alzheimer’s like his father did- sounding more confused and unfocused, talking about whales, electrocution, Hannibal Lector, telling lies, rejecting facts, science, law and logic. This is a recipe for chaos and disaster for our country. This will not go well for Trump and his cabinet picks or for us.
WHAT DID JOE ROGAN, YOUNG MEN, EGGS, and BUYING A HOUSE HAVE TO DO WITH WHO WON?
Harris’ campaign bypassed Joe Rogan, didn’t try to woo young men, and did not empathize enough with Americans who were struggling with the high cost of eggs and the inability to afford to buy a home.
Trump and his team understood he had to communicate with the American people on social media, not legacy TV, which was almost only the way the Harris team got her message out- a huge mistake. Trump’s team reached young men online in social media and the Harris campaign did not even try to connect with the lost bros of the internet. Trump reached working Americans who were complaining about the cost of eggs but were really upset about the loss of the American Dream thanks to NAFTA and other Democratic initiatives. Trump promised to shut down the border as the magical cure for Americans who weren’t feeling safe anymore. The Dems tried to tell Americans that immigrants and eggs weren’t the problem. They got branded as the “out of touch elites.”
The Dems relied too much on the reproductive rights issue, Trump’s bad character and saving our democracy to get them over the top. That did not do the trick.
Many Americans are not aware of the policy positions of the candidates running for president. Some didn’t even know Biden had dropped out of the race. Many voters look at the two candidates and ask themselves: who LOOKS like a president to me? And my guess is that most of those people go with the man. Maybe even 10 million people thought “A president should be a man”. This is especially true of cultures that revere macho males and think men should be alpha males. Like the Hispanic culture. Trust in women as leaders is taking a hit these days across the board. Even women don’t give women the benefit of the doubt when it comes to thinking women are good in leadership roles.
There has been a general cultural shift reported in the Reykjavik Index for Leadership in the past few years – trust in women leaders has gone down from 54% to 47% not only in the US but also in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK.
DON’T SELL YOUR HOME AND MOVE TO PORTUGAL YET
We should all take a deep breath and a wait and see attitude about what’s going to happen next. We don’t know if Trump will succeed at turning our oligarchy into a dictatorship. That takes a lot of effort. Especially when close to half of the country really can’t stand you, did not vote for you, and rejects your extremist agenda.
As for moving to Portugal, I hear the Portuguese are not thrilled with all these Americans suddenly showing up to retire in their country. They probably think Americans are crazy for electing Trump a second time. After all, Portugal got rid of their dictator, Salazar, after 40 years. It took a coup to remove him. They reinstated their democracy. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmtt5q8T30