Since the election, and now that he's exercising squatters rights in the Oval Office, the Republican/Populst Party has been yelling about Trump's "mandate".
I haven't posted on this today, as I think it's dangerous to assume the election doesn't mean anything. But then, in looking at it, I realized something significant.
Trump crowded 50% of the votes, but he didn't cross that line.
Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris got 48.3%.
The difference between the two is 1.5%. Who did those people vote for?
Probably not somebody even further to the right than Trump.
Chances are that those people, like me, went for a 3d party that was to the left of Trump. Some for a 3d party that was much to the left.
I voted for the American Solidarity Party candidates.
Only 63.9 percent of the eligible electorate turned out, below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020.
That means that nearly 40% of those who could have voted lazily did not. I don't know why this keeps occurring, but its inexcusable. It's notable that when Trump was running for a second term, the turnout was higher and voters gave him the boot.
So, what does nearly half of the 60% of the American electorates vote mean?
It probably largely means that Joe Biden mental decline was too large to ignore. Indeed, this is so much the case that lots of people who back Trump bring it up continually, even though there's every reason to believe the same applies to Trump. It's as if your daughter brought home a raging alcoholic and your argument in her support is "yeah, but the prior guy was a drug addict".
Neither is a good option.
The fact that neither was a good option points to the insanity itself of the non existent "two party system". Populists like to claim that moderate Republicans and Democrats are the Uni Party, not grasping that they are also. The only thing they all agree on is that you must never vote for a third party. That pushes things to the extreme, which the American public doesn't want.
It also points out that Biden failed the country massively by running when he promised not to.
But is there a mandate there? If there is, it's don't be old and don't exhibit mental decline.
That's about it.
Now, it is the case that certainly people within the Trump orbit have very distinct goals, and his being elected serves those interests. And some felt compelled to vote for him due to social issues.
Social issues have been a big deal in recent American politics and the Biden/Harris campaigns just didn't get it. They came to the conclusion, which we warned was completely wrong, that abortion would carry them over the bar. Far from it, and embracing it was stupid. They would have been better off moving to the center right on that issue, and their failure to do so actually allowed Trump to move leftward a bit.
The Democrats are also lashed to weird sexual fetishes and mental illnesses, which causes those who don't see declaring yourself as a transgender sea slug monarchist by identify as normal, as it isn't. You really can't win a campaign with a strong "we're for men in tutus" platform. T hat really hurt the Democrats.
And there was also the COVID inflation, which Biden didn't cause, but got blamed for.
This all, however, gives Democrats some advantage in the short-term and long. The public's rejection of left wing social views means that the Democrats are free to regain the ground they had prior to the 1960s. People seem surprised (we weren't) about Hispanics starting to vote for the GOP, and this evolution is part of the reason why. If Democrats moved to the center right on these, and regained their traditional post 1950s support of minorities, they could very easily flip that.
In the meantime, the damage is being done. National Conservatives, who are very smart and know that this is their only chance, will seek to overall the nation's culture in less than two years. Chances are, they'll be much more successful at it than could be imagined.
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