Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:31 pm
ABC News warned that failure to win the popular vote “may limit the extent to which Republicans can claim his election as a referendum on the state of the nation” but who are they kidding?
That’s right. In losing the popular vote, our passive-aggressive Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who denied Obama had a mandate even when he had over half of the popular vote (not just once but twice), now says Trump pulled off “the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime. He just earned a mandate.”
“Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard.” To be fair, it’s likely he heard a lot of things nobody else heard if you know what I mean. But Ryan went on to claim that, “He connected in ways with people that no one else did. And now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government.
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“Connected in ways no one else did.” Not even Obama, apparently, when he won 51 percent of the popular vote not just once, but twice. Not even Hillary Clinton, who got more votes than Trump. That is the math Republicans do, folks.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity showed the same inability to do basic sums:
“Bret Baier, they asked me to call in last night. So I called in, and he asked me, ‘Well, how is Donald Trump going to deal with House Republicans and Democrats?’ And I said ‘I don’t think that’s the question. I think it’s — how are they going to deal with him?†Because he will set the agenda. He has the mandate. Not those people that, in part, created the opening for him, I would argue.”
And Monica Crowley claimed on Varney & Company over on Fox Business that spontaneous and nationwide protests against Trump’s election were “organized and funded by the far left, by people like George Soros, and the reason is because they are trying to distract from the narrative of Trump’s mandate…”
There is clearly a narrative about a Trump mandate, but there is no Trump mandate. Yet the mainstream media, which profited so much by carrying Trump’s torch throughout the election is also claiming a Trump mandate, from Reuters to NBC’s Today show.
MSNBC’s Steve Benen concluded, “It’s almost as if Republicans are playing some kind of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ sort of game and Ryan’s so-called principles shouldn’t be taken seriously.” To be fair, Paul Ryan would have to prove he has any principles first.
Newsweek‘s Kurt Eichenwald observed that “Bizarre. Republicans lost the popular vote again, but won. They have lost popular vote 6 out of the last 7 times. That’s almost 30 years.” Thirty years of spouting a message nobody wanted to hear.
Apparently, mandates are a lot cheaper than they used to be. As mandates go, Trump’s is pretty underwhelming.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
