Trump has a Mandate

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tsuke

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https://tsukesthoughts.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/trump-has-a-mandate/

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Trump Has a Mandate

Since the election there has been a running discussion as to whether or not Trump has a mandate. The short answer is yes he does. Before we begin we have to ask What is a mandate? To put it simply a mandate is a moral argument or force of persuasion that you use to convince other elected officials to enact your agenda. It is a statement that said your constituents agreed with me so much and I won with such big margins that you are morally obligated to enact my agenda or face the consequences from them if you fail to do so.

Does a 3 million loss in the popular vote erase a mandate for Trump? or create one for Hillary if she had won? No. Whether you like it or not our electoral system does not run like that. No Senator or Congressman has that constituency. They are only answerable to the portion of the popular vote that actually vote for or against them. At this point it is worth noting that not even the most rabid believer in the popular vote and the abolition of the electoral college is calling for the voters in California to be able to decide the Senator of Iowa or Florida. If President Trump were to go to California and claim that he had a mandate there and Senator Harris had to support him, he would be wrong. If President Trump were to go to West Virginia and tell Senator Manchin that he had a mandate there because he won by 40 points he would have a very good case. More important than the technical definition of the mandate is that the people involved believe that Trump has it. A couple of weeks ago during the flag burning controversy multiple people on the right and left condemned Trump, yet Senator Manchin said that while he thought it was still legal he would punch a flag burner in the face.

Since we have the definition of mandate the question remaining is what the magic number is. In the past this used to be 60 votes as any less and the opposing party could filibuster you. Thanks to Senator Reid, a democrat, the bar has been lowered to 50. If you have at least 50 votes you can get your agenda passed.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Idaho, Wyoming, West Virginia, Utah, and Oklahoma. Trump won all these states by 30 points or more. That's 20 senators out of the 50 he needs he can claim a excellent mandate with. Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansaw, Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina were all won by 15 points or more. Thats 22 additional senators that he has a very strong mandate with. Iowa, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia were all won with 5 points or more. Thats 50 senators that Trump can claim to have a strong,very strong, or excellent mandate with. I did not even mention the senators from the same party Trump has in other closer states.

Once you actually take a look at the available data there is no question President Trump has a mandate.
 
Trump Has a Mandate
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Yes, we know all about Slump's "mandate"

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And such a cute couple they are, too.
 
You're making the term "mandate" meaningless.

If anyone thinks Trump has one, then you think every election winner has a mandate, just by virtue of winning.
 
trump supporters believing this election shows a mandate are plain idiots. this was not about a direction that the country wanted to go, but about a direction they most certainly did NOT want to go.
 
Thing1 said:
You're making the term "mandate" meaningless.

If anyone thinks Trump has one, then you think every election winner has a mandate, just by virtue of winning.
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if you win each state by 0.1% or the margin you had in michigan then you dont have a mandate. Every single result i listed is 5% or more.

or how about if you win by 10 in CA (55) NY (29) Fl (29) PA (20) IL (20) OH (18) MI (16) GA (16) NJ (14) AZ (11) TN (11) WI (10) MA (11) VA (13) MN (10) and lose everything else by 20? So you have 30 senators you can claim a mandate with which means you have none.
 
mandate? who needs a stinkin' mandate. Use pure power politics just like the dems used.
"at the end of the day" only the results matter one way or the other.
 
A president has a mandate when he has the backing of the people, Trump does not have that.
 
Jarod said:
A president has a mandate when he has the backing of the people, Trump does not have that.
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but he does. I demonstrated that he won in big enough margins to be able to coerce at least 50 members of the senate to vote his way because of their constituents.
 
tsuke said:
https://tsukesthoughts.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/trump-has-a-mandate/

View attachment 3675

Trump Has a Mandate

Since the election there has been a running discussion as to whether or not Trump has a mandate. The short answer is yes he does. Before we begin we have to ask What is a mandate? To put it simply a mandate is a moral argument or force of persuasion that you use to convince other elected officials to enact your agenda. It is a statement that said your constituents agreed with me so much and I won with such big margins that you are morally obligated to enact my agenda or face the consequences from them if you fail to do so.

Does a 3 million loss in the popular vote erase a mandate for Trump? or create one for Hillary if she had won? No. Whether you like it or not our electoral system does not run like that. No Senator or Congressman has that constituency. They are only answerable to the portion of the popular vote that actually vote for or against them. At this point it is worth noting that not even the most rabid believer in the popular vote and the abolition of the electoral college is calling for the voters in California to be able to decide the Senator of Iowa or Florida. If President Trump were to go to California and claim that he had a mandate there and Senator Harris had to support him, he would be wrong. If President Trump were to go to West Virginia and tell Senator Manchin that he had a mandate there because he won by 40 points he would have a very good case. More important than the technical definition of the mandate is that the people involved believe that Trump has it. A couple of weeks ago during the flag burning controversy multiple people on the right and left condemned Trump, yet Senator Manchin said that while he thought it was still legal he would punch a flag burner in the face.

Since we have the definition of mandate the question remaining is what the magic number is. In the past this used to be 60 votes as any less and the opposing party could filibuster you. Thanks to Senator Reid, a democrat, the bar has been lowered to 50. If you have at least 50 votes you can get your agenda passed.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Idaho, Wyoming, West Virginia, Utah, and Oklahoma. Trump won all these states by 30 points or more. That's 20 senators out of the 50 he needs he can claim a excellent mandate with. Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansaw, Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina were all won by 15 points or more. Thats 22 additional senators that he has a very strong mandate with. Iowa, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia were all won with 5 points or more. Thats 50 senators that Trump can claim to have a strong,very strong, or excellent mandate with. I did not even mention the senators from the same party Trump has in other closer states.

Once you actually take a look at the available data there is no question President Trump has a mandate.
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One of the best examples of self serving rationalizations I've ever read. A person who won office with neither a majority nor a plurality of support has, be definition, no mandate of the people.

Now if the author wishes to argue that Trump has a mandate from his supporters then that is valid reasoning but to argue he has a mandate from "the people" is simply not correct.
 
tsuke said:
but he does. I demonstrated that he won in big enough margins to be able to coerce at least 50 members of the senate to vote his way because of their constituents.
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Even if true that is not a mandate. It remains to be seen if Congress votes his way when he pushes things not already on their agenda.
 
tsuke said:
but he does. I demonstrated that he won in big enough margins to be able to coerce at least 50 members of the senate to vote his way because of their constituents.
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Then he has a mandate from the Senate...not "The People". It's intellectually dishonest to conflate the two. Actually even that is not a mandate from the Senate as you would need at least support of 51 members of the Senate to make such a claim and even if you did, given that the Senate does not represent the people proportionately. It is entirely possible for the President to have support of 51% of the Senate but for those Senators to only represent a minority of the population.

As example of what I mean is that for many years the Senate was able successfully block civil rights legislation via broad opposition in the Senate but those Senators only represented around 15% of the total population. That could hardly be considered a mandate but Southern Conservatives claimed during that era that they had a mandate from the people to block civil rights legislation. They were wrong and ultimately the will of the people, that is a mandate from the people, to protect the civil rights of minorities was enacted.

The only mandate Trump has is from his supporters and if he tries to move legislation through congress on the basis that he has a popular mandate it should come as a surprise to no one that he'll probably fail.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Then he has a mandate from the Senate...not "The People". It's intellectually dishonest to conflate the two. Actually even that is not a mandate from the Senate as you would need at least support of 51 members of the Senate to make such a claim.

The only mandate Trump has is from his supporters and if he tries to move legislation through congress on that basis it should come as a surprise to no one that he'll probably fail.
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Trump owns the Senate, you know it.
 
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