#But Trump and his people do not

[misfitwashere]

November 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 25

Since the night of the November 5, election, Trump and his allies have insisted that he won what Trump called “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But as the numbers have continued to come in, it’s clear that such a declaration is both an attempt to encourage donations— fundraising emails refer to Trump’s “LANDSLIDE VICTORY”—and an attempt to create the illusion of power to push his agenda. 

The reality is that Trump’s margin over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will likely end up around 1.5 points. According to James M. Lindsay, writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, it is the fifth smallest since 1900, which covers 32 presidential races. Exit polls showed that Trump’s favorability rating was just 48% and that more voters chose someone other than Trump. And, as Lindsay points out, Trump fell 4 million votes short of President Joe Biden in 2020. 

Political science professor Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Peter Baker of the New York Times: “If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition” On the other hand, she added, “Nobody gains any kind of influence by going out and saying, ‘I barely won, and now I want to do these big things.’”

Trump’s allies are indeed setting out to do big things, and they are big things that are unpopular. 

Trump ran away from Project 2025 during the campaign because it was so unpopular. He denied he knew anything about it, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal,” and on September 16 the leader of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, said there were “Absolutely zero. No connection. Zero” ties between the team and Project 2025. Now, though, Trump has done an about-face and has said he will nominate at least five people associated with Project 2025 to his administration. 

Those nominees include Russell Vought, one of the project's key authors, who calls for dramatically increasing the powers of the president; Tom Homan, who as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversaw the separation of children from their parents; John Ratcliffe, whom the Senate refused in 2019 to confirm as Director of National Intelligence because he had no experience in intelligence; Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to put at the head of the Federal Communications Commission and who is already trying to silence critics by warning he will punish broadcasters who Trump feels have been unfair to him; and Stephen Miller, the fervently anti-immigrant ideologue.

Project 2025 calls for the creation of an extraordinarily strong president who will gut the civil service and replace its nonpartisan officials with those who are loyal to the president. It calls for filling the military and the Department of Justice with those loyal to the president. And then, the project plans that with his new power, the president will impose Christian nationalism on the United States of America, ending immigration, and curtailing rights for LGBTQ+ individuals as well as women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Project 2025 was unpopular when people learned about it. 

And then there is the threat of dramatic cuts to the U.S. government, suggested by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They are calling for cuts of $2 trillion to the items in the national budget that provide a safety net for ordinary Americans at the same time that Trump is promising additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Musk, meanwhile, is posturing as if he is the actual president, threatening on Saturday, for example: “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”  

On Meet the Press today, current representative and senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the “dictator talk,” with which Trump is threatening his political opponents, pointing out that "[t]he American people…voted on the basis of the economy—they wanted change to the economy—they weren’t voting for dictatorship. So I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.”

That Trump and his team are trying desperately to portray a marginal victory as a landslide in order to put an extremist unpopular agenda into place suggests another dynamic at work. 

For all Trump’s claims of power, he is a 78-year-old man who is declining mentally and who neither commands a majority of voters nor has shown signs of being able to transfer his voters to a leader in waiting. 

Trump’s team deployed Vice President–elect J.D. Vance to the Senate to drum up votes for the confirmation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. But Vance has only been in the Senate since 2022 and is not noticeably popular. He—and therefore Trump—was unable to find the votes the wildly unqualified Gaetz needed for confirmation, forcing him to withdraw his name from consideration. 

The next day, Gaetz began to advertise on Cameo, an app that allows patrons to commission a personalized video for fans, asking a minimum of $550.00 for a recording. Gaetz went from United States representative to Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general to making videos for Cameo in a little over a week. 

It is a truism in studying politics that it’s far more important to follow power than it is to follow people. Right now, there is a lot of power sloshing around in Washington, D.C. 

Trump is trying to convince the country that he has scooped up all that power. But in fact, he has won reelection by less than 50% of the vote, and his vice president is not popular. The policies Trump is embracing are so unpopular that he himself ran away from them when he was campaigning. And now he has proposed filling his administration with a number of highly unqualified figures who, knowing the only reason they have been elevated is that they are loyal to Trump, will go along with his worst instincts. With that baggage, it is not clear he will be able to cement enough power to bring his plans to life.

If power remains loose, it could get scooped up by cabinet officials, as it was during a similarly chaotic period in the 1920s. In that era, voters elected to the presidency former newspaperman and Republican backbencher Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who promised to return the country to “normalcy” after eight years of the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the nation’s engagement in World War I. That election really was a landslide, with Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, winning more than 60% of the popular vote in 1920.

But Harding was badly out of his depth in the presidency and spent his time with cronies playing bridge and drinking upstairs at the White House—despite Prohibition—while corrupt members of his administration grabbed all they could. 

With such a void in the executive branch, power could have flowed to Congress. But after twenty years of opposing first Theodore Roosevelt, and then William Howard Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson, Congress had become adept at opposing presidents but had split into factions that made it unable to transition to using power, rather than opposing its use.

And so power in that era flowed to members of Harding’s Cabinet, primarily to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who put into place a fervently pro-business government that continued after Harding’s untimely death into the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, who made little effort to recover the power Harding had abandoned. After Hoover became president and their system fell to ruin in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their lost power and used it to create a new type of government. 

In this moment, Trump’s people are working hard to convince Americans that they have gathered up all the power in Washington, D.C., but that power is actually still sloshing around. Trump is trying to force through the Senate a number of unqualified and dangerous nominees for high-level positions, threatening Republican senators that if they don’t bow to him, Elon Musk will fund primary challengers, or suggesting he will push them into recess so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent. 

But Trump and his people do not, in fact, have a mandate. Trump is old and weak, and power is up for grabs. It is possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Republican senators into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish. 

It is also possible that Republican senators will themselves take back for Congress the power that has lately concentrated in presidents, check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans, and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government.

—

[houseofmarcella]

if any of you guys voted for trump or stein… unfollow me

[anotherpapercut]

the abolitionism leaving my body when I think about trump dying in federal prison

[snekdood]

"if we make america worse and more of a dictatorship that will be even harder to unravel and make it the way we want the country to be, maybe then everyone will join our Glorious Revolution!" bb girl you cant even be in the same room with someone who thinks you should vote, how in tf do you think you're gonna unite people to fight in The Revolution with you? it's gonna be you and your 5 friends, i hate to break it to you.

[theflashjaygarrick]

honestly the more i think about Hal as an often homeless, broke, frequently unemployed, felon who’s constantly five bad days away from a mental breakdown the less funny jokes about him being constantly belittled and bullied by the multi billionaire personally funding the justice league really are.

[elbiotipo]

I was going to make a longer post about it but just imagining how the US election arguments as we approach November will flood every place of the English-speaking internet (where, unfortunately, I hang out during much of my time) and god, it's gonna be so tiresome. We're gonna get flooded with "REGISTER TO VOTE" ads even if you don't live there and people arguing about voting, not voting, voting for this and that, not voting for third parties (apparently a crime in the US, great democracy guys), and so on and so on. And the results in one way or the other will be awful for the wider world. Not looking forward to it.

[thejilyship]

I walked into work this morning after crying at a convivence store because the woman behind the counter said she liked my RBG sweatshirt and she hoped I was okay. I wasn't expecting it. I live in a very red part of Michigan and her kindness and gentleness made me cry.

I told myself when I woke up that I wasn't going to cry. I stared at my phone for twenty minutes, dread pooling in my chest because even though I let myself get hopeful yesterday, I knew what I was going to see.

I said I wasn't going to cry.

And when I got to work, one of the other preschool teachers walked into my classroom, and she didn't say anything, we just looked at each other and I started to cry. I had parents who I knew were happy with the results about to drop off their kids and I couldn't start crying, but I did.

I only have nine kids in my class, I only had to get through seven drop offs today. I only had three parents that were devastated. I cried about that too.

I had two little girls in my class today, and they got into an argument, as two years old's will do, and they both got upset and started crying. One of them laid on the floor next to me, and one of them collapsed onto my chest, and I cried with them too.

During group time today, I cried while reading a book about kindness. "What does it mean to be kind? Being kind means standing up for those who are less fortunate than you." I had to stop reading for a minute. My assistant teacher looked at me from across the room and I couldn't meet her eyes.

I stayed off social media all day, but when I caved and opened tik tok, the first video I saw was of women in other countries governments saying that they were standing with us through this hard thing and I cried again.

I think I'm gonna keep crying. At least for today and the next couple of days.

And tomorrow (which may not actually be tomorrow) I'll figure out what comes next.

[daenerys-targaryen]

🗣️

[redhoodie1723]

Yeah let's also cancel Lewis Hamilton for meeting and having conversations with Putin... Yeah... Also maybe Seb too because he was also there???? Yeah... Right...some of you have never had a job where you had to talk positively about someone you didn't like or approved just for the sake of keeping that job.

idk which time ur talking about hamilton and putin meeting up and making friends, as the only time i can find that they've interacted was at the 2015 russian grand prix where putin was giving out the race trophies. hamilton, vettel, and perez were all on the podium for that race. correct me if im wrong and theres another time theyve met, but thats literally all i can find.

now, first of all, there's a big difference between having to interact with a political figure on a race podium, and choosing to interact with them freely out in the paddock, taking pictures with them, and praising them in additional interviews. there's also a big difference between being polite to the current leader of the country you're in that is known for killing/imprisoning people who speak out against him, and actively supporting an ex-leader who has (as far as we know) never actually killed someone for not being supportive.

if you ask me, it would've been unsafe for hamilton or any of the drivers on that podium to speak out against putin at that moment or act impolitely. on the other hand, the biggest trouble norris could get in for not praising trump and taking pictures with him is maybe a talking too back at the mclaren HQ. like, lets be real, it would be ridiculous and insane of mclaren to fire norris after all the time/resources theyve put into his development, especially now that its finally starting to pay off. it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, a move thats generally reserved for ferrari's strategy team or sauber's pit stops.

furthermore, you are simply assuming that norris' job wouldve been at risk in this situation. not once has it been implied that he was threatened or coerced into this situation. its even less likely that that has happened since piastri hasn't made any comments or taken any pictures with trump as far as i can find. for all we know, it could've been norris' idea to do all that. so, not exactly the strongest defense here.

and even if he had been forced into the corner and told to take pictures and play nice, he also took it a step further to compliment trump in other interviews saying it was an "honor" and there's a lot to "respect" about trump. hamilton has never come out saying any of that about putin. in fact, he has come on the record since then condemning putin and his actions. can you tell me where norris has come out condemning trump and his actions? no? that's funny.

[cenviswasteland]

Do you guys ever think about how much Klavier Gavin loses over the course of AA4?

-- Hella spoilers for Apollo Justice (AA4). Go play it, it's a masterpiece. --

Where is Klavier during 4-1? Probably preparing for a show, knowing him. How does he learn about what happens to his brother? Who tells him? Not Kristoph, he's already been taken away. Is it his family? Is it Daryan? Or does he find out from the paparazzi after his set is done, all shouting at him "Klavier! Klavier, do you have a statement on your brother's arrest?"

I wonder what happens in the in-between. Does he go to Kristoph, demanding the "what happened" and the "why did you do it"? Does he get anything? Or does Kristoph just stare back and give him vague explanations that mean nothing in the grand scheme of it all? Does Klavier beg for the answers he doesn't get? Does he cry? Does Kristoph just stare back, knowing that eventually Klavier will give up like he always does?

Klavier is so flashy in 4-2. I wonder if it's a front. I wonder if it's the hasty bandage wrapped over the aching, still-bleeding wound. After all, he's up against the same defense attorney that got Kristoph arrested. And that attorney is good at what he does. In a way, that's its own loss. It means that Kristoph's arrest wasn't a mistake. There's no way that Justice screwed up. Kristoph killed a man in cold blood, with almost no motive. And Klavier is just expected to move on. His brother is a monster. Move on.

I'm almost certain he starts confiding in Daryan in the in-between. "I dont know what to do." "He wouldn't talk to me." "I need to cut my hair now." "I can't look at myself." "He was arrested, Daryan. He killed someone, Daryan." "I look like him!" "I don't know him at all anymore!" "What do I do? What do I do?!" "I hate seeing him when I look at myself." "I miss him." "I look just like him!!" over and over and over. It's him putting his head in his hands, desperate to block out the vision. It's the "C'mon, Klav, we've got a show soon," as Daryan carefully turns him away from the dressing room mirror.

So what happens in 4-3, when Klavier starts to piece together the case? What happens to Klavier when he realizes, in time with Justice, that the shoulder he'd replaced his brother with did the same thing? What happens as Klavier watches Daryan break down on the witness stand? What happens as Klavier watches him get led away in handcuffs? What happens now that Klavier is completely, utterly alone? He can't confide in his murderer brother. He can't confide in his murderer bandmate. Who else does he even have?

…Justice? Apollo Justice, the man who got them both arrested? The man who pulled every little secret from the cases, who pointed the blame to them? Apollo Justice, the one that remains at the end of the trial, when the dust settles? The one who looks so proud of himself as he tears apart every person Klavier loves?

He can't take it. He can't take any of it. He hates the way he looks at himself in the mirror every morning, shaking off the sudden twinge of fear that he looks too much like his brother. He takes up smoking again, something he hadn't touched since turning the Gavineers into a serious endeavor. But the Gavineers don't matter much now, do they? He stops trying to get answers out of Kristoph. He does his best to not think about Daryan. He just wants to be left alone. He just wants to put his pieces back together. He can't get himself to pick up his guitars-- he nearly considers getting the ones in his office shipped off to a storage facility. Instead, he covers the case with bedsheets like he's a child again, and he starts safety-pinning newspaper clippings and red string to it. Maybe if he does enough digging, he'll be able to find out why Kristoph did what he did. Maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can shove the right evidence in Kristoph's face. Maybe, if he just does more, he'll be able to talk to his brother again.

It consumes him. He talks to no one. He barely goes home-- instead, he stays up for days at a time and collapses in his chair when his body succumbs to the exhaustion. He lives almost entirely off of coffee and cigarettes and whatever snacks are in the prosecutors' office break room. He looks awful. He feels awful. He stops making progress after a certain point, just falling into this awful, awful spiral of hatred and guilt and shame.

And it's nearly a miracle when Phoenix Wright comes to his office, asking him to help test a new trial system. He accepts without a second thought, not even bothering to check what case it was.

Oh, 4-4. Oh, when Klavier realizes with mounting horror what he's gotten himself into. When Klavier figures out that not only is his brother a murderer, he's a serial murderer. Kristoph has a seemingly never-ending web of lies, plots, schemes, and the like. And there's Apollo Justice, and himself, working in awful tandem to tear it all apart. Justice doesn't even realize that he's pulling Klavier apart at the same time, does he?

Klavier keeps looking at Kristoph, begging for any kind of retort. Any truth that can cut down Justice's line of logic. That retort doesn't come. The family closet's been full and shut for a long time, and now suddenly it's all being pulled out to the tune of "Objection!"

It's sick. It's an awful nightmare. He's not waking up from it.

Klavier is stronger than a lot of people give him credit for. But he's not strong enough for all this.

[runawaymarbles]

Every time the media mentions Harris's "vague" policy plans, Hillary Clinton probably feels a chill

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

If genocide joe loses the 2024 election don't cry about the people who understandably will not vote. I dont want trump but it'll be his own fault if he loses. If you still believe in the 2 party system you need to grow up

If you still believe that your own righteous fury is worth more than people's lives, then you also need to grow up. If a compromise will save lives, I'll compromise. I won't let people die holding out for a perfect solution that will never come.

[nattousan]

I officially start as an apprentice at a tattoo shop today!! Yippee!!

i've been drawin on myself and others since I was a kid so i guess this was only natural! I'm very excited and also Very terrified!

I can't help but think about the election coming up and how drastically different my future looks depending on who wins. Nobody's gonna want to get tattoos when they can't afford to live in the even Worse hypercapitalist hellscape trump would turn this country into should he get reelected.

How could i escape a potentially dictatorial country when I've been apprenticing and all my savings are gone? What would happen if he succeeds in banning my existence as a trans man and i'm forced to detransition in the eyes of the law? I really don't see anything being sacred when it comes to human rights for this monster and until we know once and for all that he's out, I will not be able to relax.

Alls I can do right now is make sure i VOTE. That's the one thing that will save us. Vote blue. Vote for the future and our potential to improve things under an imperfect but not outright fascist government. Overwhelm the numbers to where there can be no argument as to who won.

please. make sure to vote.

[flying-cat]

I can't imagine being anywhere near as insane as Trump supporters because my dad told me that he, earlier, drove past a guy putting a "Harris Walz 2024" sign outside his house and decided to yell out at him "TRUMP 2024 YOU COCKSUCKER" and flip him off. And he laughed when he told me because he thinks that yelling at a man (emphasized man because he thinks men should be "better" than women, and "better" would be voting for Trump in this case) who is voting for a "whore who slept her way to the top" (his exact words) is funny. And expected me to laugh with him. And got angry when I didn't and just stared at him in disbelief. Even though he already knows that I don't like Donald Trump. These people fully expect others to find their weird ass derogatory words and behavior FUNNY. Donald Trump is leading a cult of old people who he brainwashed into being delusional with him.

[tuttle-did-it]

As someone who has worked on war and history in an academic setting, the rise of Trump all felt incredibly familiar to everything I've read and seen.

When Trump started shouting into the void, I said that he reminded me of Vollmer, the character Dennis Hopper played in The Twilight Zone episode, 'He's Alive.'

(First thing's first, please try to go watch this episode and then read the rest of this, because the episode was incredibly well done.)

Everyone told me that Trump was just a harmless clown-- that no one would really vote for him. That I was inventing absurdities just because I don't like Republicans and Trump. He's just a joke. He's a sexist, homophobic, racist, transphobic rapist. And no one would vote for him. We're too civilised for this, now. We've evolved as a species, and that will never happen again.

Everyone got a pretty clear reality when people did, enthusiastically, salivate over the idea of having a sexist, homophobic, racist, transphobic racist in power. And over the past few years, he's become enveloped in his own conspiracy theories and hatred. And I am still strongly reminded of Vollmer every time I see Trump speak.

For those who are not aware, the episode is about a tiny, useless little white man who craves power and adoration. (spoilers for a 61 year old show below.)

A man in the shadows teaches Vollmer how to capture the attentions and hatred of the white audiences and rise to power. The phantom is eventually revealed to be Adolph Hitler.

S4 E4, Episode aired Jan 24, 1963, Written by Rod Serling, directed by Stuart Rosenberg.

Rod Serling's Opening Monologue:

Key scene where the Phantom (Hitler) teaches Vollmer from the shadows. Tell me that Trump and the other Republicans have not learned these lessons just as well as Vollmer ever did.

Rod Serling's End Monologue:

All of this has happened before. All of this IS happening again. Make no mistake-- Trump is unstable, and doesn't know about half the lies that come out of his mouth every day. But if you think, for a second, that this man has your best interests in mind? You are going to get a very, very harsh dose of reality. But not before millions of people suffer at the hands of this monster, and will for many, many years to come.

[rhaenin-time]

The changes the writers made to Alicent, Aemond, and Aegon have too many modern connotations and it disturbs me that so many people find those connotations "sympathetic."