Republicans are claiming a mandate to speak for the “silent majority,” but the actual numbers show that not only did Donald Trump fail to win a plurality, his vote total largely matched other recent GOP candidates, notes Nicolas J S Davies.
By Nicolas J S Davies
Within days of the U.S. general election, central elements of the result have already entered into American mythology: the revenge of the “white working class voter”; the unprecedented anti-establishment character of the President-elect; the populist revolution that led to Trump’s victory; and the years in the wilderness now facing Democrats and progressives in America.
But the endless repetition of these themes by the corporate media deserves a great deal more skepticism and scrutiny before they worm their way into all our heads to form the established and accepted narrative of this election. Let’s first review some basic facts about what happened on Nov. 8:
Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention. (Photo credit: Grant Miller/RNC)
Who Voted Republican?
Though Donald Trump prevailed in the Electoral College, he failed to secure a plurality of the total ballots cast, getting a bit over 60 million votes to Hillary Clinton’s 61 million votes, according to The Associated Press tally. Meanwhile, only 55.6 percent of 219 million eligible voters, or 50.4 percent of the voting-age population, actually voted, placing the U.S. 33rd out of 35 advanced (OECD) countries in national voter turnout, above only Chile and Switzerland.
Only 27 percent of eligible voters or 24 percent of the voting-age population voted for Trump. Roughly the same number, about 60 million, voted for both John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. The result was different because Barack Obama received 69 million votes in 2008 and 66 million in 2012, while Hillary Clinton could only muster only a shade more than Trump, Romney and McCain.
As Sen. Bernie Sanders repeated in every stump speech during the Democratic primaries, “Let us never forget, Democrats and progressives win when voter turnout is high. Republicans win when people are demoralized and voter turnout is low.”
So, Trump deserves…