Trump Has a Mandate for Change

My liberal friends like to crow after a big victory about how they have a mandate. America has finally seen the light and is ready for the Elysian fields of a progressive Utopia.

Well, the only light at the end of the tunnel our liberal friends saw in this election was from the Trump train running them over. In my wild fever dreams, I thought it even possible that Trump could win New Jersey or New Hampshire for no other reason than they once had voters with common sense. That would have meant a landslide.

Realistically, I hoped for a Minnesota flip – and, yes, it was the best-performing blue state for Trump. Maybe, by holding the blue line, Gov. Tim Walz wasn’t such a sorry vice presidential pick after all. The alternative was Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a state that was a raging dumpster fire for Democrats.

With over 300 electoral votes and a majority of the popular vote, Trump has a mandate for change. When people criticized Trump for the Madison Square Garden rally and campaigning in the New York metropolitan area, where he would clearly lose, they missed the point. Yes, it was about down-ballot candidates. 

More importantly, campaigning in blue states was about winning the popular vote. Those long-neglected voters, finally seeing someone respond to their unrequited love for normalcy, spit into the face of their woke state’s headwinds, defied the odds, and voted Republican. It was brilliant. And it was a key to Trump’s popular vote mandate.

This gives Trump, Elon Musk, and Bobby Kennedy the maneuvering room they need to make some real changes. That is the hope. That is the promise. That is the dream.

For Trump, this is the best of times and the worst of times. He has a mandate for change, which is the best of times. But the minute he takes the oath of office, he is a lame duck, which is the worst of times. Theodore Roosevelt’s outspoken daughter Alice said the minute her father said he wasn’t running for re-election he almost immediately regretted it. It weakened his leverage. The advocate for the strenuous life was suddenly lame.

That is why picking such a “young” vice president by today’s decrepit standards was genius. Vice President-elect JD Vance can play the role Vice President Dick Nixon played for Ike. Cross my boss at your peril. I might just be next in line. And even if not, I can probably out-argue you on all the talk shows and podcasts. I can turn your voters against you.

My old newspaper, where I began in the days when we had both morning and afternoon editions, has a paywalled editorial on the mandate. Since I can’t share it, here are some key points:

• Harris’s defeat was decisive.
• She circumvented the Democratic process to get the nomination.
• She outspent Trump by hundreds of millions.
• She had all the CEO’s behind her.
• Her media coverage was virtually paid advertising.
• After being tarred as a Nazi, Trump won the Jewish vote.
• In majority-Muslim Dearborn, Mich., Trump got a plurality.
• Starr County, Texas, the country’s most “Hispanic” county, went Republican.
• The Democrat victory margin was cut in half from 2020 in a blue state like Connecticut.
• Those under 30 years old, non-white voters, and women all shifted stronger for Trump than in 2020.
• The Democrats no longer have a lock on “their” key constituencies.

Related: The Morning Briefing: TRUMP WINS. AMERICA WINS.

I have a friend who, back in the day, worked for a while in the office of House Speaker Tip O’Neill. After the Democrat shellacking in 1980, Tip understood which way the wind was blowing. He could still be a real pain in the neck for Republicans. He and Ronald Reagan were like two old Irishmen trading pointed barbs. During lulls in the donnybrook, they would toast each other for their respective political genius. But after the election that ushered in the Reagan revolution, Tip made it crystal clear to his team. The people have spoken. We have to listen. 

Will today’s Democrat leadership do the same?