It’s not surprising that the various toadies, lickspittles and henchmen who have attached themselves to the Trump movement are repeatedly insisting that Trump’s re-election win — which is one of the narrowest in presidential history — was actually a staggering landslide that carries with it an enormous mandate.
Let us remember that after the 2008 election, Barack Obama told Eric Cantor, "Elections have consequences," and republicans saw this as the height of arrogance because, to paraphrase Horace Greeley, not all republicans are racist, but all racists are republicans. Well, I exaggerate a little.
But that's the point. Joe Biden would have been "acceptable" in the way that child of the 60s Bill Clinton and Black man Barack Obama were not, and by then republicans were too far gone. George W. Bush did indeed claim mandates. I really think Ronald Reagan had a mandate not to be Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale. Considering the damage he did--Charlie Pierce the other day referred to John Wilkes Booth as the actor who did the most to harm the U.S. until Ronald Reagan--he more than fulfilled that duty.
Thanks for clarifying when the designation of red vs blue states became consistent. I thought that I had watched elections where republican wins were blue and democratic ones red. And it bugged me that I never managed to nail this down. . . until now. Cheers!
The old clips can be surreal, like David Brinkley saying the 1984 map looked like a big blue swimming pool but he was describing a Republican landslide
Let us remember that after the 2008 election, Barack Obama told Eric Cantor, "Elections have consequences," and republicans saw this as the height of arrogance because, to paraphrase Horace Greeley, not all republicans are racist, but all racists are republicans. Well, I exaggerate a little.
But that's the point. Joe Biden would have been "acceptable" in the way that child of the 60s Bill Clinton and Black man Barack Obama were not, and by then republicans were too far gone. George W. Bush did indeed claim mandates. I really think Ronald Reagan had a mandate not to be Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale. Considering the damage he did--Charlie Pierce the other day referred to John Wilkes Booth as the actor who did the most to harm the U.S. until Ronald Reagan--he more than fulfilled that duty.
Thanks for clarifying when the designation of red vs blue states became consistent. I thought that I had watched elections where republican wins were blue and democratic ones red. And it bugged me that I never managed to nail this down. . . until now. Cheers!
The old clips can be surreal, like David Brinkley saying the 1984 map looked like a big blue swimming pool but he was describing a Republican landslide