So, I was elsewhere and people were incidentally bitching about the election

[conuly]

and I super get it, and not mentioning Musk, which yeah, what did we expect from that asshole, but one of the things somebody said was that people overwhelmingly voted for Trump and of all the bullshit propaganda not to fall for this is absolutely the bullshittiest.

Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris got 48.3%. Even if we're going to round to the nearest whole number, this is not an overwhelming mandate by any stretch of the imagination. And if we go around acting like it is, like the word "overwhelming" can reasonably be applied to these percentages, then we may as well roll over and die already, it'll be faster.

If we do nothing else in the next few years can we at least remember to check our numbers?

Comments

[used_songs]

Seriously. Facts DO matter.

[lydamorehouse]

This is IMPORTANT.

Thank you for the reminder.

[hazard]

Exactly , and that’s not even taking into consideration all those folks who didn’t bother to vote … overwhelmingly my arse!

[thewayne]

And this was the big problem. If Dems could have been bothered to get out and vote, Monday would have been a completely different affair.

[siliconshaman]

With all due respect, they think he has a Divine Mandate, thanks to that wanna-be shooter with bad aim...

You think numbers are going to matter to him or them?

[conuly]

I think that the least we can do is not amplify the lies. This wasn't one of his groupies saying it.

[hudebnik]

"Overwhelming" is the point, hence the hundred-or-so executive orders on Day 1, almost every one of which violates norms of decency or democracy if not the Constitution.

And, as we learned the first time around, he's compelled to do something outrageous every day, or he might fall out of the headlines. And people develop a tolerance for outrageous, so he has to do something more outrageous the next day than the previous day. That's inevitably going to happen for at least the next four years, or until he drops dead; there's not much we can do about it, except resist a select few especially-egregious things. No one person has the time, energy, or money to fight them all. You have to preserve your sanity.

Speaking of narrow margins, the Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate and 218-215 in the House. Any rational person would read that to mean "nothing is going to get done without bipartisan support." But in recent years, it means "nothing is worth bringing to the floor unless we can pass it without a single Democratic vote."

[conuly]

Certainly all this is true.

However, it is not true that an overwhelming majority of Americans voted for Donald Trump in the last election.

And that's the difference between overwhelmingly fucked and entirely fucked.

[minoanmiss]

Word.

[radiantfracture]

That's quite helpful. Thank you.

[cesy]

Thanks for the reminder

[silveradept]

There hasn't been a president with a strong popular vote majority for a while, regardless of what the Electoral College shows.

Certainly not anything resembling an "overwhelming" descriptor. (Not that it matters to him or his party, but yes, we can not repeat propaganda.)

[shadowkat]

Agree. Truth is - a lot of folks didn't vote. I know a lot of folks who don't - although in NY in probably didn't matter that much. One of my co-workers never votes. Another one - from Moscow, rarely does. Although I think the Moscow one did vote against the Doofus in this election.

It's never been overwhelming. Maybe Obama...he did get the popular vote, as did Bill Clinton, I think.

"More than 155 million Americans voted in 2024: 156,302,318 to be exact. That’s the second largest total voter turnout in U.S. history in absolute terms. It is also just the second time that more than 140 million people voted in a presidential election.

In relative terms, voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent. That is below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020, which was the highest voter turnout rate in a U.S. presidential election since 1900. "

Per the council of foreign relations: https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers

"Early election coverage described Trump’s victory as a landslide. But whether you go by the Electoral College vote or the popular vote, it was anything but. The 312 Electoral College votes that Trump won are just six more than Joe Biden won in 2020, twenty less than Barack Obama won in 2012, and fifty-three less than Obama won in 2008. Trump’s Electoral College performance pales in comparison to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s landslide victory in 1936 (523 electoral votes), Lyndon Johnson’s in 1964 (486), Richard Nixon’s in 1972 (520), or Ronald Reagan’s in 1984 (525). In terms of the popular vote, more people voted for someone not named Trump for president than voted for Trump in 2024, and his margin of victory over Harris was 1.5 percentage points. That is the fifth smallest margin of victory in the thirty-two presidential races held since 1900."

Basically less people voted, which was the problem in 2016 as well. Gerrymandering was another problem. There's a lot of folks who honestly don't trust or believe the federal government matters or affects their personal lives in any way.

[vvalkyri]

Also remember just how much voter suppression there was, whether or not we ever find out what the hell musk did with the voter information he paid for.