Poll: How many Dopers believe President Trump is an illegitimate President?

Mostly, IMHO, he is illegitimate because someone like him has no business even trying to be President of the United States. I’m sure I’ve said it before in these forums: even if he and I agreed on everything there possibly might be to agree on politically, I’d still fear having him in the White House. In so many fundamental ways, he’s not up to the job.

Even now, he hasn’t the least idea of what’s involved, and he hasn’t exactly spent the past year and a half learning. He is satisfied that his ignorance is strength. He has the attention span of a four year old, except when he is holding a grudge, and his sense of responsibility has a similar level. He doesn’t really care about other people; I’m not sure if he regards them as real. He doesn’t want to be President in the sense of the job, but rather he wants to be President just in the sense of being the Big Cheese. The problem is, the job comes with it, and he’s already demonstrably bad at it.

Legitimate? From a narrow and restrained viewpoint, yeah, sure. According to the law, appropriate formalities observed. Is that it then, case closed? Nothing to see here, move along, submit?

Many, if not most, of my fellow Americans see the electoral college as a formality to acknowledge and certify the results of an election. These are usually the same Americans who cherish a myth of the Founding Fathers as revolutionaries committed to an egalitarian democracy. Sadly, no. They were not, they were revolutionaries fighting to shift power away from inherited nobility to businessmen and landlords, as God intended.

But only a few of them saw it as a means to crush dissent, to force a regime upon an unwilling majority. As it has become. Most, with cold eyed realism, saw it as a compromise to create a unified nation that would not be sliced up into colonies by France, England and Spain. (Were I there, I would most likely have agreed, realpolitik, we could not progress in a country that does not survive).

A sensible person would see a divided country and think towards negotiations, how we might compromise, adjust so that our national family might continue, our over-extended family, our thermo-nuclear family. How we might adjust to each other as equals, with the side having the edge in votes having a proportional edge in negotiating. Not to slam the other guy’s face down in the mud and grind it, but a polite recognition of numbers.

But our Republican brethren have no such intention, they mean to seize more power than they are entitled to, to turn the country inside out and re-cut the pattern to fit them better. That is a whole different kettle of piranha.

More people voted for Democrats for Senators, more people vote for Representatives that were Democrats. And, of course, more people voted for Hillary than for Il Douche (you may have heard).

But the people, apparently, do not matter, only the legal mechanisms for placing a flabby butt in an undeserved chair. As I said, reasonable Americans dedicated to principles would look to open negotiations, to hammer out compromise. But the Trumpiviks have no such intention, they are reminiscent of Lenin and his so-called “bolshevik” (majority) party. They will seize power by whatever mechanism is available. They do not seek to govern, but to rule.

One may reasonably argue over the question of a legitimate election. But how can these actions be justified without doing violence to the very idea of election? The very men who weep copiously and bloviate piously about protecting the sacred vote from grubby hands now are willing to shuffle that all aside, as it might impede their grasp for power. Sad!

That is not legitimate, and they either don’t know or don’t care. But since we have told them, they do know. Which only leaves the other poisonous option. Its not the election that is not legitimate, but the purposes to which it is being put!

They should be ashamed, they are not, they expect us to be! Equality in compromise is the very essence of political justice, if that is purposely and intentionally violated, well…What is to be done?

Well said, 'luc.

[raises hand]
Pardon me, but I’m not seeing a linky here.

Not to mention, if it was discredited decades ago, it’s possible that new evidence has changed the picture since then. ‘Decades’ is a long time, an exposé done ‘decades’ ago was written closer to the events in question than to the present, and information relating to such skulduggery tends to come out fairly slowly.
[/raises hand]

This - unless **BobLibDem **is arguing that Reagan would have lost if it weren’t for the Iran hostage issue. I think Carter was headed for defeat no matter what.

Or, unless BobLibDem’s “tainted” means that the victory wasn’t 100% clean - in the sense that the New England Patriots probably would have still beaten the Jets in Week 1 of the 2007 season without resorting to videotaping cheating, but that the cheating gives that game a bad taint from then on.

If we’re distinguishing between illegal and illegitimate, then clearly we’re excluding legalities from the definition of “legitimate”.

Legally, Trump is President. In what other way does he have legitimacy?

All of his wins in the election came about through systemic failures. There were too many Republicans competing against each other, with nearly identical policy, splitting the sane vote. He never had a majority backing through the whole primary process. If, from the start, there had been only a single opponent, he probably would have failed out. The electoral college operates on a methodology not intended by the people who wrote the Constitution. He lost the popular vote. Minus involvement from foreign actors, it’s completely plausible that Trump would not have won.

If you exclude legality from the definition of “legitimate”, there is zippo to back Trump’s presidency.

The only way he is legitimate is that he genuinely did make it through fully legal means. And that does make him legitimate. But then the question being posed makes no sense, since it makes the two options we’re given be secretly one option. What is the purpose of asking, “Did he legally become President or did he legally become President?” Well gee, what an honest question. I’m so happy for the option you have given me.

Which is why I voted “insufficient information” in the poll.

I could never have put this so eloquently, but yes. This is precisely why I view Trump as illegitimate. The ‘i’s’ are dotted and the ‘t’s’ are crossed – but as I said in another thread, that’s essentially an acquiescence to the concept that the end justifies the means. I vehemently disagree.

+1, elucidator. I have always found you aptly named.

You can think whatever you want, but the polling was very close until just the last few days. If the hostages are released with a week to go, there’s every reason to believe that last-minute ‘break’ of the undecideds to Reagan doesn’t happen, wavering Carter supporters aren’t wavering anymore, and Carter probably regains a chunk of normally Dem voters who voted for Anderson.

That isn’t relevant, since there isn’t any new evidence.

Regards,
Shodan

The USA is a republic of 50 states. Trump won the majority of states and the majority of votes by the states’ electors.

Trump only won 45.9% of the national popular vote compared to Clinton’s 48.0% plurality. If the election hinged upon national popular vote totals, then some aspects the candidates’ campaign strategies would have been significantly different.

Both major parties nominated unpopular candidates. Neither won a majority >50% of national popular vote. Both candidates had a chance because the other major party nominee had significant baggage.

The Democrats beat themselves by nominating Clinton in spite of her terrible 2008 primary campaign, illegal server, corrupt foundation, and other baggage.

IMHO, more blame lay with Podesta than with Russia for leaked emails.

Election of Trump = Legitimate

The potentially unconstitutional conflicts of interest for the POTUS may or may not inhibit his ability to hold the office legitimately.

I voted 3rd party. I have qualms about some of Trump’s statements and actions but hope for the legitimate POTUS to exceed the expectations of an alarmed populace.

I wish I had reason to believe his presidency lacked legitimacy (and did so in a way that would cause a large plurality of Senators, Representatives, Supreme Court justices, Governors, etc, and the American public, to consider it to be illegitimate). I don’t.

I’m closer to believing the electorate is illegitimate. Collectively non compos mentis.

Nope, I don’t think he lied (meaningfully) or cheated (or cheated relevantly) to be elected. He showed us what he was. He was pretty much out there for voters to see. We elected him anyway.

Remember GeeDubya’s speech after his Installation? How he recognized that he was not the choice of the majority of voters, and how that compelled him to accept a status of a compromised President, a President empowered only to moderate a debate among equals? How we would respect and reflect the views of those who did not agree with him, and would refuse to leverage a technical win into an unacceptable agenda?

You don’t remember that speech? Not surprising, really, neither do I.

And then Republicans would have had a nice conspiracy theory that Carter timed the hostage release just in time for an October surprise. Heartless Carter, letting those guys languish blindfolded in some Iranian basement until he could get maximum political benefit from their release. It does kind of sound like you and BobLibDem believe that was the plan until those meddling Reagan people messed it up.

The Village Voice article ripping it apart was from twenty five years ago. I don’t know if it’s available online.

You are aware of who the Village Voice is aren’t you?

They’re not exactly fans of Reagan and if they found Gary Sick’s claims lacking then it’s hard to believe they weren’t.

Define “very close”?

Carter was wildly unpopular. So unpopular that he was primaried by his own party. In fact, the Iranian Hostage Crisis which temporarily boosted his popularity by giving him a “rally round the flag” effect probably saved him from getting dumped in favor of Kennedy.

Why is it a systematic failure that there wasn’t just one other candidate in the primaries? There is nothing about the system that is supposed to produce only 2 candidates. Furthermore, there is nothing about the system that is supposed to limit the number of candidates. If I didn’t slice the ball off the tee half the time, my golf scores would be better. But I do slice half the time.

In what way does the electoral college operate on a methodology “not intended by the people who wrote the Constitution”? And so what if it does? Are you advocating Originalism as the only legitimate method of interpreting the Constitution?

He lost the popular vote. You guys really need to let that go. It’s a non-starter. The election isn’t about winning the popular vote anymore than the World Series is about scoring the most total runs.

“Foreign involvement” doesn’t make an election illegitimate. If it did, there would be a mechanism for canceling the election and re-doing it. But there isn’t. The only way to make that stick is to prove some collusion on the part of Trump and then go for impeachment.

The presidency is illegitimate.

I fully expect the Trump Presidency to be one of the worst ever when it is concluded in four years time, but he is still the current President. Ogg help us all.:eek:

Oh, the big orange Turd is legitimately president. What he’s not is capable.

His presidency is perfectly legitimate, though it says a number of ugly things about modern-day America, none of which are especially surprising.