No, Trump Did Not Win in a Landslide—Nor Did He Secure a Mandate

As blue Western states and cities finish counting votes, it looks like the popular vote “landslide” projected for Donald Trump last week turned out to be a trickle. When all the votes are counted, he will end up with a margin of roughly two points over Vice President Kamala Harris. Presidents Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972 won more than 60 percent of the popular vote; Ronald Reagan in 1984 won 58 percent. Those were landslides.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a bad outcome for Democrats. Trump won all seven swing states, netting himself 312 Electoral College votes (to Biden’s 306 in 2020). Democrats lost control of the Senate; the GOP now has 52 seats, and will likely wind up with 53 when the race between incumbent Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey and Connecticut corporate titan David McCormick is finally called (provisional ballots are still being counted). It will probably hold the House, by a slim margin.

So yes, none of this is good news. But it’s not the top-to-bottom repudiation of Democrats as it first looked like, and the way to respond is not to launch a civil war within the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, that has already begun. Centrists blame the doctrine of “woke,” with particular ire for trans Americans (we see you, New York Rep. Tom Suozzi); leftists say Democrats abandoned the working class (we hear you, once again, Senator Bernie Sanders). Both positions are wrong. Others point fingers at the Harris campaign. Meanwhile, much of the media hypes Trump’s win as a landslide, which would seem to validate his racist, anti-worker agenda.

Thank you!

People live in fantasy land. They so want a “leader” or perhaps just envy the Reagan dominance and want it back to experience in a different age (for them). I want that too, but it’s not here yet, either EVs or in real legacy.

You have a few interpretation errors, or lack of stats, in there. It says “foreign-born”, not illegal, although I don’t doubt there are many more illegals.

Further, those are straight simple cardinal numbers, not percentages. The whole population has gone up, too.

I lived since the hippies changed everything. There was length of knee-jerk hatred of America in high school in the ‘80s, presumed and couched carefully in teachers’ and administrator’s remarks if not in the texts (my mother was also a teacher in this time), never mind all the anti-Reagan (he’ll start a nuclear war!) and the anti-nuke garbage. Though interestingly, we hardly seemed to have any “protests” in the ‘80s, e.g., since there likely was a resurgence against the hippie mindset that brought these landslides, thanks to my parents’ generation and before still dominating. The anti-nukes were all over Europe, and against Reagan, but not much in the US. Could be partly since Reagan was so lovable also.

Anyway, the fact remained liberals still simmered with bitterness over the US in general, always complaining how it wasn’t perfect then, and wasn’t perfect for blacks or “workers” before.

Yes things changed, but don’t be under any illusions that Democrats loved America unconditionally. They already got the hatred on.

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