Trump’s False Mandate: Learning the Lessons to Protect Democracy

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Does Trump Have a Mandate? The Evidence Says Otherwise 

As I mentioned in my last two podcasts, I am going to take time to research varies resources and help you and I learn as much as possible what happened in this election. There are many learnings to have, and I am certain that all you, listeners, do not want to read all the articles I read to select the best documents for my podcast.  

Trump keeps saying he has a mandate, since the Republicans have control of the Senate, and he thinks he won the popular vote, which he has not. He did win the electoral college. Please know we still do not have all the votes counted, so we do not know what the composition of the house will be. The electoral college representatives have to count their votes and then let us know what happened. 

The Conversations is a valuable resource that speaks the truth. Here are their comments to answer the question posed at the beginning of this podcast. In their newsletter (us.newsletter@the conversation.com) on November 22, 2024, at 9:18 am, by Naomi Schalit, Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy, we have these facts from them: 

“Before the election night 2024 was even over, Donald Trump claimed that voters had handed him an ‘unprecedented’ and ‘powerful’ mandate. 

Maybe they didn’t. 

While it initially looked like Trump would get a majority of the popular vote, his margin has since shrunk, with Trump as of November 21 securing 49.87% of the popular vote—a plurality, not a majority—and Kamal Harris getting 48.25%. More importantly, scholars who study presidents and political power don’t even know whether mandates actually exist. 

Mandates and Power: A Historical Perspective 

Julie Azari’s scholarship, as highlighted in The Conversation, reveals that the concept of presidential mandate often serves as a tool for consolidating power, especially in polarized times. Azari explains that such claims can sometimes mask a lack of true legitimacy or public support. 

‘The possible objections to the entire idea of an electoral mandate are endless,” writes scholar Julie Azari, author of a book on presidential mandates. But unsurprisingly, she adds, The idea remains attractive to politicians and commentators.’ 

Azari walks readers through the history of presidents claiming mandates, from Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama. What she found in her deep research is that presidents use the claim of a mandate when they want to expand their power—in some cases, she writes, as ‘a way to give an unchecked executive the veneer of following the popular will.’ 

In other cases, the claim of a mandate is ‘employed by politicians in weak positions, in response to polarized politics and flagging legitimacy.’ As an example, she quotes 2000 election winner George W. Bush, who actually lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, telling GOP congressional leaders, ‘I am able to stand before you as the President because of an agenda that I ran on.’” 

The Popular Vote Myth: Trump’s Plurality, Not Majority 

Contrary to Trump’s assertions, as of November 21, 2024, he holds only 49.87% of the popular vote—a plurality, not a majority. Amber Phillips of The Washington Post underscores how this slim margin and small Republican gains expose the fragility of Trump’s claim to a mandate. This article appeared in their newsletter on Friday, November 22, 2024, at 4:00 pm entitled “Does Trump actually have a mandate? Not really.” 

“Wait, does President-elect Donald Trump actually have a mandate? What would actually be on the chopping block from his government efficiency initiative?” 

“The Wahington Post’s senior political reporter Aaron Blake has been exploring just how much Republicans won this month’s election by. As some of the final results come in, he finds that Republican gains were actually small. Here’s an excerpt from his analysis: 

‘We learned a while back that Republicans lost most of the swing-state Senate races—four of five. They flipped the chamber because they won in three red states that Trump carried by double digits. 

Then we learned that Trump didn’t even win a majority of the popular vote, and his popular-vote margin over Vice President Kamala Harris (currently at 1.7 points and falling) ranks on the low side for recent history. He still won—and swept the swing states in a surprisingly decisive electoral-college result—but a majority of the voters didn’t support him.  

Fighting for Fair Maps and Protecting Democracy 

The work of organizations like All On The Line proves that fair maps and voting rights are essential for a just democracy. We must push for justice and fairness with relentless effort. In their newsletter, Biz, All On The Line, allontheline@redistricitngaction.org, on Thursday, November 21, 2024, 3:04 PM entitled “Moral arcs don’t bend with certainty” give us great information. This organization was started during Obama’s Presidency. Here are some facts from this newsletter: 

“As Attorney General Holder once said, ‘Moral arcs don’t bend with certainty. History is not a Marvel movie—the good guys lose as often as they win.’ 

There’s no easy way to say it. A lot of good folks lost in races around the country. But some really strong pro-democracy leaders won, too—like former voting rights advocate and current North Caroline Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. Just yesterday, a recount began in the race for the North Carolina Supreme, which Riggs won by just a few hundred votes. These close races show how important the fair maps movement’s efforts to reach every voter in North Carolina are—and how important it is to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard.  

We know many people in this community worked so hard for so long to make positive change in this election season, both here with All On The Line and with other organizations across the country. 

We Understand that it can feel discouraging. And let us be clear: The incoming administration that will control the federal government has threatened to take away many fundamental freedoms, and the threats of those loses is scary.  

In both Louisiana and Alabama, we saw what can happen when fair maps are in place. 

As you’ll remember, the  Allen v. Milligan decision enforced protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965—and because of the voting, both Louisiana and Alabama had to redraw their maps. 

And this year, voters in both of those states elected two Black Members of Congress who truly reflect their political desires. 

In Arizona, the work we did to educate voters around the high stakes of the ballot initiative helped defeat ‘The Judicial Accountability Act of 2024.’ As a reminder, if passed, this would have essentially ended term limits for state supreme and appellate court judges. But instead, you helped hold the line against a tremendous, partisan abuse of power, and Arizonans will continue to have a say over who sits on their highest court. 

And maybe even the most critical, you helped build power in states all across the country. All On the Line and affiliates recruited over 6,800 poll watchers and sent over a million text messages to voters. We have real capacity within this community. 

The work to restore fairness to our democracy is bigger than one election session. All in a time has always been about the long-term fight for fair maps. And in a time like this, it’s worth repeating: The work to end gerrymandering and protect voting rights for all Americans is effective. Fair maps matter. And your support makes it possible. 

Next year alone, there are state house elections in Virginia, a state supreme court seat up in Wisconsin, and three state supreme court seats up in Pennsylvania. And our affiliate, the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF), is supporting voters in active litigation in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. 

So, we must continue the fight. We cannot give up on bending the moral arc. We need to put our full weight into this work.” 

I am going to ask you to put yourself on the email list (allontheline@redistricitngaction.org), and if you can donate any amount monthly, since fighting the Republican gerrymandering is one of the best places we can put our money to support our democracy. 

Misinformation and Manipulation: The Hidden Strategy 

The 2024 election was marred by an unprecedented misinformation campaign, orchestrated by Republican operatives and backed by Elon Musk. Misleading ads targeted specific communities with contradictory messages designed to suppress support for Kamala Harris. These tactics highlight the need for vigilance and investigative journalism to counter such deception. 

The Washington Post on November 15, 2024, at 5:00 am EST by Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey “Inside the Republican false—flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters,” gives us a clear picture of what “A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.” Here are a few examples of these false ads by Musk to give you a picture how much manipulation occurred by Musk in his effort to buy the presidency for Trump: 

“Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania meanwhile, saw ads form the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel.” 

“Another group promoted ‘Kamala’s bold progressive agenda’ to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black Voters in North Caroline were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.” 

“What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single, $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk who had previously worked on the presidential campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis according to a presentation about the group’s efforts obtained by The Washington Post.” 

This is the reason investigative journalism is so important, and we need to continue to support efforts like this to bring the truth forward. This article is very hard to summarize, since every sentence is something, you will want to know about to fully understand Musk and the Republican party’s efforts to provide misinformation to win the election. 

Here are some other efforts that “worked in concert with a separate project by the Trump campaign to depress turnout for Harris—knowing that Trump would be unlikely to drastically expand his vote totals.” I have already given you the data about a drop in voters turning out for Harris. If they had turned out, Harris would have won. Trump’s total only increased slightly from 2020. 

“Democrats grew alarmed in the final weeks of the campaign as the ads started appearing on Facebook and Google. Priorities USA, a Harris-backing super PAC, made efforts to get spots taken down from both platforms because of their deceptive nature. Google eventually stuck at least one spot in which one of the Building America’s Future groups took footage from a Harris ad in Pennsylvania targeting Jews and began targeting it to Muslims with the words ‘This is a real Kamala Harris ad’ superimposed. 

People from both sides of the aisle knew it was dishonest, disingenuous, and should have stopped the running of these ads that looked like Harris. Republican party said, “But it worked, and the numbers are undeniable,” Romeo said. “We had a ton of inquiries on these efforts from the media. We didn’t answer any of them. We just ran our strategy, and we didn’t care what anyone said. Romeo is the spokesperson and creator of the strategy for Building America’s Future and also worked as a spokesperson for Musk’s America PAC. 

Lessons for Democrats: Facing Hard Truths 

If you are interested in a historical analysis of how the Democratic party got it wrong then I encourage you to read The Washington Post article on November 17, 2024, at 7:00 AM EST by Ramesh Ponnuru entitled “The Democrats weren’t stupid or crazy—just wrong.” The message is clear that partisans can misunderstand their own victories. This article talks about it beginning with Barack Obama’s landside election in 2008, and then a shaper turn to the left took place with the Democratic coalition “because of the impact of partisan sorting. As liberal Republicans became Democrats and conservative Democrats became Republicans, there were fewer votes and politicians inside the ten to restrain liberal impulses. The pro-life, pro-gun Democrats wo had made previous Democratic congressional majorities dwindled and then all but disappeared.” 

Among the many important statements this one stood out to me: “Biden-era Democrats did not ignore working-class voters. They just thought that any culture-based disagreements with those voters, especially White moderates and conservatives, could be fixed by economic appeals. Infrastructure spending, industrial policy, protectionism, reinvigorated antitrust enforcement and pro-union policies were supposed to prove that Democrats were on the side of working Americans, with no need to modify socially liberal positions.” 

“On Election Day, the bill came due on a decade and half of overconfident assumptions, and mistaken interpretations. Low presidential approval ratings did matter, the rallying cry of abortion and democracy was not able to overcome economic discontent. The ads assailing the Democrats’ combination of extremism and condescension on issues such as immigration and transgender rights hit home. 

Another article that brings home the historical basis of this defeat is The New York Times article by Damon Linker on November 7, 2024, entitled “Kamala Harris Failed to Read the Room. I believe these two articles require us as Democrats to take time and make the effort to hear what the American people have told us about their loss of trust in our government. I worked in addiction a long time and I believe the Democratic party became addicted to certain positions ignoring what the American people were saying to us about their concerns about our positions. To overcome an addiction, we have to admit our mistakes and problems that Americans have with what we are offering them.  

Striking Out Against Injustice: A Call to Action 

Peter Wehner’s article in The Atlantic, “Don’t Give Up on the Truth,” on November 13, 2024, 6 AM ET inspires a path forward: truth-telling, moral courage, and the cultivation of hope. Drawing on the lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Wehner challenges us to remain civil, hopeful, and relentless in our pursuit of justice. 

Here are statements to consider and work with as the Democratic Party moves forward to make an impact with voters by being clear what we need to do by 2026 and 2028.  

We need to face this fact: “Trump isn’t only winning politically; he is winning culturally in shaping America’s manners and mores.” We need to face the fact that his supporters will excuse away anything he does in the future, since they have excused away any thing he did in the past. Here is what Wehner recommends for the Democratic Party to do: 

“First, we must remind ourselves of the importance of truth telling, of bearing moral witness, of calling out lies. Countless people, famous and unknown, have told the truth in circumstances far more arduous and dangerous than ours. The simple step a courageous individual must take is to decline to take part in the lie.”  

We have to accept that one word of truth always outweighs the lie. When we bring out the truth, we help to sustain others by encouraging them. We remind them that they’re not alone.  

“Second, we need to guard our souls. The challenge for Trump critics is to call Trump out when he acts cruelly and unjustly without becoming embittered, cynical, or fatalistic ourselves.” 

We cannot invest our time with the realization that we have elected “a man of borderless corruption and sociopathic tendencies.” Our actions need to be truth of what happened here so I will have a podcast that tells how Trump won. We cannot ignore all the things his campaign did that worked whether we like some of them or not. It may take effort on my part when talking with friends that voted for him to be willing to acknowledge when Trump does something right, and possibly when he rises above his past. It is time to let go of fighting and condemning who and what Trump is. That did not work; it’s tiring to have those kinds of discussions and IT IS ENOUGH. 

The article reminded me of the brilliance of Martin Luther King. He lead a movement that was passionate and was powerful, and he inspired people to be loving, respectful and civil in their dissent.  

“Third, The Democratic Party, which for a time is only the alternative to the Trump-led, authoritarian-leaning GOP. We need to learn from this loss. My view aligns with that of my Atlantic colleague, Jonathan Rauch, who told me that ‘this election mainly reaffirms voters’ anti-incumbent sentiment—not only in the US, but also aboard (Japan/Germany). In 2020, Biden and the Democrats were the vehicle to punish the incumbent party; in 2016 and again in 2024, Trump and the Republicans were the vehicle.” 

I know people that want to have a simple answer so they can move on from their pain. They are going to miss the learnings that you and I will have that keep looking for and finding answers to what happened and what needs to be done.  

“Fourth, Trump critics need to keep this moment in context. Jon Meacham (historian) put it this way,” (Trump) is a unique threat to our constitutional government. “I anticipate that Trump’s victory will inflict harm on our country and some of it may be irreparable. But it’s also possible that the concerns I have had about Trump, which were realized in his first term, don’t come to pass in his second term. And even if they do, America will emerge significantly weakened but not broken. Low moments need not be permanent moments.” 

There are many families and organizations that have been divided by the intense feelings about Trump and politics. I know that it is time to do my best to find ways to heal divisions without giving up on being committed to untangle, name and stand firm against lies. 

“Fifth, all of us need to cultivate hope, rightly understood. The great Czech playwright (and later president of Czech Republic) Vaclay Havel, in “Disturbing the Peace, wrote that hope isn’t detached from circumstances, but neither is it prisoner to circumstances. The kind of hope he had in mind is experienced ‘above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world.’ It is a dimension of soul, he said, ‘an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.” 

In June of 1966, Robert F. Kennedy went to South Africa during one of the worst times of apartheid. He delivered a speech at the University of Cape Town. I am going to end this podcast with his words that are quoted from Wehner’s article: 

“He spoke about the need to ‘recognize the full human equality of all our people—before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. He acknowledged the ‘wide and tragic gaps’ between great ideals and reality, including in America, with our ideals constantly recalling us to our duties. Speaking to young people, he warned about ‘the danger of futility; the belief there is nothing one man or woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills—against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence.’ Kennedy urged people to have the moral courage to enter the conflict, to fight for their ideals.” 

Here are the words engraved on his gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery, he said this: 

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” 

Concluding Paragraph 

Robert F. Kennedy’s timeless words remind us that striking out against injustice is always right and always matters. His vision of countless ripples building a powerful current should guide us now more than ever. As we face this moment in American history, we must commit ourselves to truth, courage, and hope—anchoring our actions not in despair but in the belief that we can shape a better future. It happened in South Africa during apartheid, and it can happen here. Let us rise to the challenge and ensure that the fight for justice, fairness, and democracy prevails. 

References for Podcast 108:

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