I wrote in your "CHRIS CRUCIAL" column yesterday...it's still pertinent here too.
The FACT is that the majority of voters did NOT vote for Trump.
The FACT is that only one Republican in the past NINE presidential elections, since 1992, has gotten a majority of the votes.
The past THREE winning Democratic elections, the Dems DID get a majority of votes.
In this election, the three critical states, PA, MI & WI, Trump won by only a collective 242,580 out of 153 MILLION cast nationwide.
He loses all those (which he did in 2020), he does not win.
THAT is not a "mandate" of any sort.
The FACT is that President Biden and President Obama (twice) did a LOT better than Trump's narrow win.
Did not see any GOPer's respecting their CLEAR mandates.
In FACT, President Obama not only did not get ANY "honeymoon", the day of his inauguration in 2009, Mitch McConnell met with the GOP caucus and hatched the plan that they would OPPOSE ANYTHING and EVERYTHING President Obama wanted to get done for the American people with his very clear and convincing mandate...
52.9% vs McCain's 45.7%. A huge 7.2 point win. 365 EC votes vs 173.
Trump has NO "mandate" and absolutely deserves NO honeymoon.
His clown car of dangerously incompetent cranks and charlatans for his cabinet and other critical jobs must be STRONGLY OPPOSED!!!
I have been saying this for days, and every time Chris jumps on the “decisive and sweeping” victory bullshit train — which he does all too often. Presented with facts, he sticks to his opinion.
A mandate to do what exactly? Reduce the price of eggs? Lower the cost of home mortgages? Or breach the constitution by sending armed military into blue states?
Elections have consequences. It doesn’t empower Presidents to break the law.
This old mandate thing is such a media buzzword implying that Trump is now entitled to wreak vengeance on his enemies like a Roman. Nope lol.
If he doesn’t want national chaos for 4 years he should behave himself.
I expect Trump is going to do many unpopular things and the Dems will do very well in the 2026 election. I don't know how long it will take Trump to tank the economy, but other bad policies should be evident, like mass deportations and using the justice department to go after his "enemies"
Forget all the other stuff. We have a major problem. Republicans and democrats need to come together like 9/11
China has done an unbelievable intrusion of our network infrastructure and our software
I’m not being chicken little. We can’t even get them out of some of the stuff
Both parties need to go to Trump and say you can either totally tank this country or become the biggest hero since FDR
Forget all the China tariff stuff. It would be great to charge them 60% but it is not going to solve the problem
Pull Gabbard and Hegseth. It’s not about personality. It’s about qualifications. Defense DNI and Justice need to be headed by the A team. Hannibal (not Lechter) are you out there
For me, you need to be approaching 60% of the popular vote to have a mandate. Reagan in 1984 & LBJ in 1964 are the only ones in the recent past in my mind. It's a polarized society and until that changes, it's tough to claim a mandate with or without a trifecta.
I thought that in 2000. If Bush had governed humbly and bipartisanly he would be remembered as a great president. Instead he acted as if he won a mandate, and today is considered among the worst.
Why are we even talking about whether Trump has a mandate as defined by anyone other than Trump? If he won by 1 vote, he'd consider it a mandate. The rules have changed. Obama was humble and skirted the question of a mandate and good for him. From Trump's view, if you sit in the White House you have a mandate to do whatever you want to do, especially with the Supreme Court telling him he's immune for anything deemed official to the role. Talk about a blank check for criminal behavior! Until we all realize he doesn't care about any norms that exist, we'll be unable to check him. If you think the Sen. Republicans will play that role, guess again. We've seen this movie before and we all know the ending. Time to change the rules and the lens we view all of this through.
You are still saying that voters were buying what Trump was selling — and I agree. But he wasn’t selling any real policies or ways to actually do the things you claim that voters approved of. He was selling bombast and anger, and using false facts to do so. Voters were buying that. As PT Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. In modern America, I think the rate has increased to every 15 seconds. He sold snake oil, magic beans, and nostalgia to a group of angry and largely ignorant people. I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. I mean it in the definitional sense. They literally don’t know that deporting 11 million people (not the 25 million Trump claimed) and putting tariffs on everything will *increase* food prices, and cause inflation. They didn’t know that the idea of even deporting 1 million people is a logistical and cost nightmare that the government isn’t really capable of doing. They didn’t know that Elon Musk has no chance of cutting $2 trillion out of a $6.75 trillion budget, of which only $895 million is non-defense discretionary spending, and another $824 billion. To paraphrase Forest Gump, ‘I’m not a smart man, but I don’t know how to cut $2 trillion out of $1.8 trillion’.
He sold bullshit, but he sold it enthusiastically. He sold anger, but he sold it with authenticity. That is what people bought, and you give them too much credit if you think they gave more than a half a second of thought to whether his “policies” were possible, or what they would actually mean in the real world.
This column on definitions and discussions surrounding mandates is probably THE BEST I’ve read so far. Exactly why I subscribe. I want to be informed and educated about stuff about which I know so little!!!!
Father John Misty- I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All: great song, great band. I believe this is not the first time you’ve shared their music with us. TY!
They are great! I came to them through Phish, reviewed a couple of their shows over on my page last year. Reviewing concerts is a nice break from writing about politics, I need to get back to it!
No he doesn't. But doesn't matter because all that matters in USA politics is winning by one vote and you have 100 percent of the power. Act like you won every EC vote and people will believe you.
I wrote in your "CHRIS CRUCIAL" column yesterday...it's still pertinent here too.
The FACT is that the majority of voters did NOT vote for Trump.
The FACT is that only one Republican in the past NINE presidential elections, since 1992, has gotten a majority of the votes.
The past THREE winning Democratic elections, the Dems DID get a majority of votes.
In this election, the three critical states, PA, MI & WI, Trump won by only a collective 242,580 out of 153 MILLION cast nationwide.
He loses all those (which he did in 2020), he does not win.
THAT is not a "mandate" of any sort.
The FACT is that President Biden and President Obama (twice) did a LOT better than Trump's narrow win.
Did not see any GOPer's respecting their CLEAR mandates.
In FACT, President Obama not only did not get ANY "honeymoon", the day of his inauguration in 2009, Mitch McConnell met with the GOP caucus and hatched the plan that they would OPPOSE ANYTHING and EVERYTHING President Obama wanted to get done for the American people with his very clear and convincing mandate...
52.9% vs McCain's 45.7%. A huge 7.2 point win. 365 EC votes vs 173.
Trump has NO "mandate" and absolutely deserves NO honeymoon.
His clown car of dangerously incompetent cranks and charlatans for his cabinet and other critical jobs must be STRONGLY OPPOSED!!!
Yet MAGA will claim that The Greatest President Ever (tm) won 60%, but the steal took those votes while failing to stop his Golden Self.
Excellent comment, thank you.
I remember. Thank you for reminding us.
I have been saying this for days, and every time Chris jumps on the “decisive and sweeping” victory bullshit train — which he does all too often. Presented with facts, he sticks to his opinion.
A mandate to do what exactly? Reduce the price of eggs? Lower the cost of home mortgages? Or breach the constitution by sending armed military into blue states?
Elections have consequences. It doesn’t empower Presidents to break the law.
This old mandate thing is such a media buzzword implying that Trump is now entitled to wreak vengeance on his enemies like a Roman. Nope lol.
If he doesn’t want national chaos for 4 years he should behave himself.
"If he doesn’t want national chaos for 4 years he should behave himself."
Something he has shown himself totally incapable of doing.
I expect Trump is going to do many unpopular things and the Dems will do very well in the 2026 election. I don't know how long it will take Trump to tank the economy, but other bad policies should be evident, like mass deportations and using the justice department to go after his "enemies"
Exactly! Well said “King Donald!”
Forget all the other stuff. We have a major problem. Republicans and democrats need to come together like 9/11
China has done an unbelievable intrusion of our network infrastructure and our software
I’m not being chicken little. We can’t even get them out of some of the stuff
Both parties need to go to Trump and say you can either totally tank this country or become the biggest hero since FDR
Forget all the China tariff stuff. It would be great to charge them 60% but it is not going to solve the problem
Pull Gabbard and Hegseth. It’s not about personality. It’s about qualifications. Defense DNI and Justice need to be headed by the A team. Hannibal (not Lechter) are you out there
Forget to the deep state. We got deep shit
For me, you need to be approaching 60% of the popular vote to have a mandate. Reagan in 1984 & LBJ in 1964 are the only ones in the recent past in my mind. It's a polarized society and until that changes, it's tough to claim a mandate with or without a trifecta.
I thought that in 2000. If Bush had governed humbly and bipartisanly he would be remembered as a great president. Instead he acted as if he won a mandate, and today is considered among the worst.
Why are we even talking about whether Trump has a mandate as defined by anyone other than Trump? If he won by 1 vote, he'd consider it a mandate. The rules have changed. Obama was humble and skirted the question of a mandate and good for him. From Trump's view, if you sit in the White House you have a mandate to do whatever you want to do, especially with the Supreme Court telling him he's immune for anything deemed official to the role. Talk about a blank check for criminal behavior! Until we all realize he doesn't care about any norms that exist, we'll be unable to check him. If you think the Sen. Republicans will play that role, guess again. We've seen this movie before and we all know the ending. Time to change the rules and the lens we view all of this through.
You are still saying that voters were buying what Trump was selling — and I agree. But he wasn’t selling any real policies or ways to actually do the things you claim that voters approved of. He was selling bombast and anger, and using false facts to do so. Voters were buying that. As PT Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. In modern America, I think the rate has increased to every 15 seconds. He sold snake oil, magic beans, and nostalgia to a group of angry and largely ignorant people. I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. I mean it in the definitional sense. They literally don’t know that deporting 11 million people (not the 25 million Trump claimed) and putting tariffs on everything will *increase* food prices, and cause inflation. They didn’t know that the idea of even deporting 1 million people is a logistical and cost nightmare that the government isn’t really capable of doing. They didn’t know that Elon Musk has no chance of cutting $2 trillion out of a $6.75 trillion budget, of which only $895 million is non-defense discretionary spending, and another $824 billion. To paraphrase Forest Gump, ‘I’m not a smart man, but I don’t know how to cut $2 trillion out of $1.8 trillion’.
He sold bullshit, but he sold it enthusiastically. He sold anger, but he sold it with authenticity. That is what people bought, and you give them too much credit if you think they gave more than a half a second of thought to whether his “policies” were possible, or what they would actually mean in the real world.
Sure. He has a mandate just like he had the largest crowd at his 2017 inauguration. 😉🤦♂️🤣😂
This column on definitions and discussions surrounding mandates is probably THE BEST I’ve read so far. Exactly why I subscribe. I want to be informed and educated about stuff about which I know so little!!!!
What a brilliant piece of detective work by Chris to think of (and locate) that classic picture of Reagan being dunked! Who knew?
😎
Certainly not a mandate. But, I'm not sure it really matters. Repubs will have 2 years to put "wins up" for the American people.
If they don't deliver sufficiently enough, they'll be punished in mid-terms. American electorate so damn fickle.
Good Lord Chris. You are a writer. FEWER seats.
Kamala Harris, a black woman, lost.
Donald Trump, a white man, won.
Ain't Amerikkka great!
"Worse" than that. Kamala is married to a white man who is a JEW! OMG!
Father John Misty- I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All: great song, great band. I believe this is not the first time you’ve shared their music with us. TY!
Chris, have you ever checked out Goose at all? They frequently cover Father John Misty, and have even performed with him on stage.
Yes love them!
I hope you got a chance to see them in DC! Those shows sounded amazing.
https://jimfossel.substack.com/p/two-days-of-goose-hot-tea-in-portland
They are great! I came to them through Phish, reviewed a couple of their shows over on my page last year. Reviewing concerts is a nice break from writing about politics, I need to get back to it!
No he doesn't. But doesn't matter because all that matters in USA politics is winning by one vote and you have 100 percent of the power. Act like you won every EC vote and people will believe you.