That you think it is impressive is not that impressive. You don’t seem to bother factoring in a lot of things when you formed your opinion. Chief among them is that the population of the country has grown since every other Republican nominee ran for POTUS. Your use of raw numbers is, IMO, misleading and ignores much in order to be able to try and present them as somehow indicative of something positive. When taken as a percentage of voters and eligible voters, Trump’s numbers come up short (just like his fingers).
If you want to blame anyone for your candidate losing, blame the Democratic-leaning voters who decided to stay home because HRC wasn’t an inspiring figure. Trump only won Michigan by 11,000, if a few more decided to show up, Hillary could have won that state (although she still would’ve lost the presidency). Same with Wisconsin. In Milwaukee, a liberal Democratic bastion, a lot of voters didn’t show up either, and some of the ones who did actually voted for Trump, attracted by his trade message.
Yes, the U.S. population has increased in recent years. However, in 2012 and 2008 both Republican candidates were unable to surpass Bush’s 2004 popular vote high for a Republican, and Trump did. That’s why it’s impressive.
She deserves some of the blame, but far more of the blame goes to the voters who ignored/made excuses for Trump’s incredible lies (including the racist and evidence-free lies about Obama that propelled him to political prominence), or ignored/made excuses for the many racist/misogynistic things he said during the campaign. I wish she had run a better campaign (and it was so close that only a slightly better campaign in WI, MI, and PA would have won it for her), but the majority of the blame goes to the ones who voted for Trump.
The US pop. has increased in every year.
He got less than half the votes. Explain why that’s impressive.
I take it, then, that you have no comment to offer on his assertion that three to five million illegal votes were cast for Hillary? Good. See, you’re getting smarter already! Your rebuttal is flimsy, but not that flimsy.
I don’t believe millions of illegals voted for Hillary.
As opposed to the overeager conservative zealots in the Trump administration? <cough> Bannon <cough>
I have to say, that’s a new tack; instead of total denial, it’s “it wasn’t us, it was them…” Well…new in that for once it’s not the Democrats you’re blaming.
Sorry, you don’t get off the hook that easily. It was overwhelmingly Republicans, by a margin of 263-7 in both houses, who did that. Not neocons, Republicans. And if you use the excuse that they were fooled, how do you have the balls to say that Hillary was any different?
Care to answer anything else?
Bannon is a conservative, but I wouldn’t classify him as a “conservative zealot.” He diverges from classical Republican orthodoxy in some ways, such as in trade and domestic spending for infrastructure.
I’m not excusing the Republicans who voted for the Iraq War, as I said. And neither am I excusing the Democrats. A majority of Senate Democrats voted for Iraq as well.
It was pretty gratuitous to see Hillary Clinton using Khizr Khan and his wife to further her political interests, after all their son died because of the Iraq War which she voted for.
And before you tell me Trump supported the Iraq War, it wasn’t fullthroated “support”, it was an “I guess so” in a September 2002 interview with Howard Stern, which is a tepid endorsement at best.
In a January 2003 interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Trump changed his mind and made clear that he wasn’t a supporter of the Iraq War effort where Trump said:“Perhaps he shouldn’t be doing it yet. And perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations.” His stance can obviously be interpreted as leaning towards opposing it.
January 2003 was two months before March 2003 when the Iraq war officially began, so it was correct for him to say he was against the Iraq war before it began, while Hillary voted for it.
Which is a tepid denouncement at best.
Bannon’s goal is “deconstruction of the administrative state”.
No, no conservative ideologue he.
It’s the goal of every conservative to take a chomp out of the Big Government apple. 
To deconstruct it? :dubious:
These people do say what they say, not what you wish they’d say.
Then he was mistaken? Just a goof, a slip of the lobes? When did he come around on that, I think I missed it.
At any rate, he did not get majority of the votes cast. Now, if you believe as I do, that the foundation of political power is, or at least, ought to be…the will of the people. It is not legitimate to impose a major set of changes without a majority of that power. Basically, its cheating, its using legality to deny justice.
He does not have a mandate from the people but usurps that power without a legitimate basis. He ought not to do that.
With me so far?
Dude. It’s called lying. He does it. A lot.
Why choose to let him fool you?
I get what you’re saying, But Hillary didn’t receive a majority of the vote either. She received a plurality. A majority who be higher than 50.00%. She only got 48%. No candidate received a majority in this election.
I don’t consider it cheating, given how the Electoral College has been the way we elect our presidents for over two centuries, and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in not allowing big states–such as California–too much power over the other states was resolute.
And Trump only got 46%. Which is less. Why do you keep harping on Trumps vote counts when he got fewer votes?
When will you understand that despite winning the Presidency, he has more people against him than for him?
He does not have a mandate to steamroll the opposition.
He is supposed to be the President for the entire country not just for those who voted for him.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say there’s more people against him than for him, since only 60% of eligible voters turned out. If 100% of eligible voters turned out, he very well may have won a majority, or a plurality, of the popular vote. There’s just no way to know. And Rasmussen and Politico polls show him with a respectable approval rating, ranging from 49-51%.
Then it’s not accurate to tout his vote count in either the primaries or the general. If everyone voted, maybe Clinton would have won.
Trump is averaging 42.6 favorable, 50.6 unfavorable.
Notice how far off Rasmussen is from all the others.
And Rasmussen was back in January. Look at the more recent polls.
I also noticed that Rasmussen was the 2nd most accurate pollster in this election, putting Hillary ahead in the popular vote by 2 points–which was her exact winning margin of the popular vote. (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/rasmussen_reports_calls_it_right%20) A lot of the other polls got 2016 wrong. Rasmsussen got it exact.
2016 was the year people should have learned not to trust everything pollsters say. By continually citing polls showing Trump’s supposed low approval rating, they evidently did not learn that lesson.