Ah politics in the age of Donald Trump and the Republican Party's amen chorus. Yes, continue to tell yourself your huge lies and even you will start to believe them. And a triumphant president-elect Donald Trump and his genuflecting, ring-kissing minions just can't stop crowing, preening themselves and boasting about a "historic" election win, a veritable "landslide," and a "mandate" from the American people. Trump himself in a speech from his Florida lair chortled that his victory was history making, and one that "our country has never seen before, nothing like this."
"Amazing what happened, we had tremendous success. The most successful in over 100 years, they say." As if in lockstep like dutiful Duracell-driven zombies, his brown-nosing "yes men and women" are now all singing that the Orange Messiah won the elections in "dominating and historic fashion." But is all the political spin hyperbole accurate? Nope. Not quite. It's a tissue of unadulterated lies, half-truths and selected nit-picking. In fact, Trump's claims are only "historic" if you ONLY include the last three elections - from 2016 - that he's contested. However, hard data, facts and numbers do not lie - especially when it comes to political campaigns.
So, here are the FACTS: ONE, Donald Trump will NOT get more than the 50 percent of the total votes cast on November 5 (by the time certification takes place in January 2025). Plus, his 1.6%-point margin over VP Kamala Harris will turn out to be the SMALLEST of popular vote win margins - since 1968, yes, 56 years ago - when Richard Nixon bested Hubert Humphrey. Want more historical context? Well, Trump's Electoral College margin will also be SMALLER than BOTH Barack Obama's win, and Bill Clinton's two victories.
FACT TWO: The Republican Party and Donald Trump's presidential victory IS historic. But NOT for the reasons he and his spokespeople are touting. Indeed, history WAS made by Donald Trump since America never previously elected to the highest office in the land a convicted felon, and an attempted coupist. FACT THREE: The now popular regurgitation of how Trump won the elections besting Democrat Kamala Harris by getting more votes than any Republican candidate over nine elections, how he won all battleground states, and tore into the Black and Latino voting blocs is just a NARRATIVE about performance and NOT history or facts. At best its selective lying - period.
Moreover, the big hullabaloo and chest-thumping about how DJT won the "popular vote" as if it's really a big thing is just so much spin and political obfuscation. The FACT is that this is historically unremarkable in the scheme of U.S. presidential elections because most - if not the majority - of presidents have done this. For example, Republican Ronald Reagan won 59% of the votes cast in 1984, while Richard Nixon won 61% in 1972, but did so with 54 million and 47 million votes, respectively, at a time when the overall voting population was far lower than it is today. All the more reason why Trump's performance is simply unremarkable.
But you see, Donald Trump has never lost an opportunity to jump headfirst into political spin, unnecessary lying, and clumsy exaggerations. Recall that back in 2016, he called that victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton "historic" even though he received nearly 3 million fewer votes than she did. And when he was caught lying about his crowd size compared to Barack Obama's he doubled down and ordered his media minions to consistently repeat the lie. And who can forget that to this day his continues to insist that the won the 2022 Presidential Elections despite evidence to the contrary?
Finally, all of the spin, lies and bombastic claims are not about facts, truth or reality. It's about Donald Trump speaking to his, ignorant, gullible, angry, grievance-driven base that has no sense of history or facts nor do they care. For them, if Donald Trump says it - then it MUST be true. No questions asked. This is what we have become. The American Cult of the Personality. Even AI robots are way smarter.
