Trump’s popular vote win may not be what it seems.
Since winning the presidential election two weeks ago, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a handful of the most shocking Cabinet picks ever selected and exerted pressure on the U.S. Senate to bend the knee and submit. The positive spin on these picks, and the aggressive strategy behind them, is that they’re much-needed disruptors. One might also look at them as anti-nominees, sent as a message—a middle finger, specifically—to the civil service.
Republicans are still working out their talking-point defenses of these nominees on a case-by-case basis. But the overarching defense of Trump’s selection strategy is that the American people voted for dramatic change, to shake things up, and to do away with business as usual in the capital. And many powerful Republicans are playing fast and loose with a dangerous word: mandate.
“We are ready to deliver on America’s mandate in the next Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a House GOP press conference the week after the election.
“A clear mandate for change from the American people,” Elon Musk posted on Nov. 16, after Trump had crossed the 76 million vote threshold.
“Winning the popular vote provides a mandate and a national public confidence to accomplish what he wants to do from the Oval Office,” longtime Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said a couple of days after the election. That comes from a CNN story in which Trump is described as “having a much different mentality than he did in 2017 and feeling like his popular vote win gives him a mandate as he speaks with world leaders, top aides and allies, business CEOs and his transition team.”
A ”mandate” discussion arrives shortly after each presidential election. It is always frustrating. It’s treated as a binary question—mandate or no mandate??—as if there is a certain numerical threshold from which one crosses into the other. If the winner’s popular vote and Electoral College margins were above the subjective Mandate Line, then we are to suppose he has the public’s blessing to do whatever he wants. If they’re below the Mandate Line, then buddy? You’d better watch your step.
It had been 20 years since Republicans won the presidential popular vote, so one can understand their exuberance.
