Also, our numbers matter
Heading into Season 2 of “The Apprentice Goes To Washington,” we are already seeing Donald Trump’s flacks insisting he won a mandate bigger even than his first inauguration crowd. Even without Sean Spicer around to parrot it, you know know the line by heart: “Like nobody’s ever seen.” There will be big strong men with tears in their eyes agog at Dear Leader’s yuge mandate, etc.
Not so. The New York Times subhead reads: “The latest vote count shows that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins since the 19th century.” But if Trump is still breathing, he’s still selling the rubes crap like Trump steaks and Trump sneakers and Trump NFTs and Trump Bibles:
The disconnect goes beyond predictable Trumpian braggadocio. The incoming president and his team are trying to cement the impression of a “resounding margin,” as one aide called it, to make Mr. Trump seem more popular than he is and strengthen his hand in forcing through his agenda in the months to come.
[…]
With some votes still being counted, the tally used by The New York Times showed Mr. Trump winning the popular vote with 49.997 percent as of Thursday night, and he appears likely to fall below that once the final results are in, meaning he would not capture a majority. Another count used by CNN and other outlets shows him winning 49.9 percent. By either reckoning, his margin over Vice President Kamala Harris was about 1.6 percentage points, the third smallest since 1888, and could ultimately end up around 1.5 points.
Johnson beating Goldwater in 1964 with 61% was a lansdlide. Nixon wiping the floor with McGovern with 61% was a landslide. Reagan besting Mondale in 1984 with 59% was a landslide. I grew up with Lyndon Johnson. I voted in the 1984 election. Donald, you’re no Ronald Reagan.
Peter Baker adds:
Mr. Trump would not be the first newly elected or re-elected president to assume his victory gave him more political latitude than it really did. Bill Clinton tried to turn his 5.6-point win in 1992 into a mandate to completely overhaul the nation’s health care system, a project that blew up in his face and cost his party both houses of Congress in the next midterm elections.
George W. Bush likewise thought his 2.4-point win in 2004 would empower him to revise the Social Security system, only to fail and lose Congress two years later. And President Biden interpreted his 4.5-point win over Mr. Trump in 2020 as a mission to push through some of the most expansive social programs since the Great Society, then saw Republicans take control of the House in 2022 and the White House and Senate two years after that.
One can hope Trumpty Dumpty has an even greater a fall.
I don’t expect one as dramatic as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s (nor do I wish it), but the improbable has been happening with unnerving regularity over the last decade, almost as if “Q” had changed the gravitational constant of the universe without us knowing.
James Aames reminds TikTok how quickly things can go sour for dictators who send troops after their own people, as Trump is crazy enough to try. “Our numbers matter.”