Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Not normal: a President-elect only a minority approves

Ezra Klein has this right:

Democrats should force both the media and Republicans to take seriously the fact that Trump is governing without a majority, or even a plurality, of the American people behind him, and that that carries with it a responsibility to govern modestly.

... Elections decide who wins power. They don’t decide how it should be wielded. If Trump governs in a way that respects the center of opinion in the country — a center Democrats appear to hold — Democrats should work with him. If he isn’t, then they should keep pointing that out, and force him to govern alone. They owe their voters nothing less.

As Ezra says, there is no sign, with the appointments of the white nationalist crank Steven Bannon and the racist old Confederate fantasist Jeff Sessions, that our budding autocrat is capable of modesty.

But we have no need to participate in his delusion. Majorities gave their votes to Clinton; Democratic Senator candidates cumulatively won far more votes than Republicans; the same is likely true of House candidates. Our people are not well geographically distributed to take power -- but we are the considerable majority. And Democrats should own that we are the majority and repeat it at every turn.

No comments: