We need to stop using kingly words like "mandate" to describe what was by the numbers a narrow victory in a globally anti-incumbent election year.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wider margin in 2016 than Trump won it in 2024, and no one is using the word "mandate" to describe the decimation of the Clinton-Obama coalition that followed her electoral loss. The truth is that Trump squeaked by thanks to deep apathy among former Biden-voters and an electoral college tilt that typically favors red states. He still won, and that still matters, but political commentators and the general hand-wringing liberal public doesn't need to give him even more narrative power than he's already trying to seize.
Great post connecting an esoteric misconception to today's reality of ballooning deficit with less (not more) functionality.
Personally I think he does have a mandate, but it's a fragile one. When you own the Presidency, the House, and the Senate; and public opinion is very clearly in favor of a substantial number of the main things they ran on (border strengthening, Federal cost cutting, institutional reform, foreign dis-engagement, and a de-emphasis of identitarian politics... see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/us/politics/trump-policies-immigration-tariffs-economy.html), it's hard for me to not call that a mandate.
I could even take the evidence you just shared and make almost the opposite point -- because Trump is so personally loathsome, the fact that he won the popular vote *despite* his awfulness implies that these issues are particularly salient for the electorate. Put another way: Trump's *agenda* is what has earned the mandate. But I suspect they will lose the mandate pretty rapidly as America gets reminded how incompetent he & the people around him are.
We need to stop using kingly words like "mandate" to describe what was by the numbers a narrow victory in a globally anti-incumbent election year.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wider margin in 2016 than Trump won it in 2024, and no one is using the word "mandate" to describe the decimation of the Clinton-Obama coalition that followed her electoral loss. The truth is that Trump squeaked by thanks to deep apathy among former Biden-voters and an electoral college tilt that typically favors red states. He still won, and that still matters, but political commentators and the general hand-wringing liberal public doesn't need to give him even more narrative power than he's already trying to seize.
Great post connecting an esoteric misconception to today's reality of ballooning deficit with less (not more) functionality.
Personally I think he does have a mandate, but it's a fragile one. When you own the Presidency, the House, and the Senate; and public opinion is very clearly in favor of a substantial number of the main things they ran on (border strengthening, Federal cost cutting, institutional reform, foreign dis-engagement, and a de-emphasis of identitarian politics... see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/us/politics/trump-policies-immigration-tariffs-economy.html), it's hard for me to not call that a mandate.
I could even take the evidence you just shared and make almost the opposite point -- because Trump is so personally loathsome, the fact that he won the popular vote *despite* his awfulness implies that these issues are particularly salient for the electorate. Put another way: Trump's *agenda* is what has earned the mandate. But I suspect they will lose the mandate pretty rapidly as America gets reminded how incompetent he & the people around him are.
Thank you for the compliment!
> But the administration does not need to brazenly lie about deficit reduction in order to make this point.
Have you met the median voter?
😳😳😳😳😳