Mandates and what a vote means

There has been a lot of talk about whether or not Trump has a mandate and that isn't my interest here. It's about the idea of having a mandate in general. If a president wins the EC and the popular vote, does that necessarily they have a mandate? A mandate for everything they campaigned on? People vote for a wide variety of reasons. A vote doesn't mean you are advocating for everything the candidate campaigned for. Some people might have voted for Trump because of Supreme Court nominees. Others because of economic reasons. Others because of immigration. Others because they'd like to see what a businessman can do in the office. Any number of combinations. Granted, in today's polarized blue/red US it's probably common for a voter to generally agree with all the candidates stances. But this election pitted two unusually disliked candidates so there were a lot of people who weren't voting based on enthusiastic support of the candidate and could be even riskier to talk about mandates.

There are various polls done, including exit polling, but I wish there was a more systematic approach to getting data from voters about WHY they voted for a particular candidate and what issues were most important to them. It might yield some interesting results. :idunno:

trump has a mandate because he was such a wild card

ok doser said:

trump has a mandate because he was such a wild card

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I'm not seeing how that means he has a mandate.

kmoney said:

I'm not seeing how that means he has a mandate.

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he won when he shouldn't have

by all rights he should have washed out of the process early in the primaries and faded into obscurity


instead he miraculously won the primaries

then, hillary should have had no problem at all in putting him down like the sick dog he is

instead, nobody cared that he called women pigs, called Mexicans rapists, was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women's crotches and may have colluded with putin to sabotage the dnc


and he won :dizzy:

I don't think a president has a mandate when they don't at least win both the popular vote and the electoral college. I didn't think Bush had a mandate in 2004, even when I voted for him, and I don't think Trump has one now.

A really strong mandate is when you get a very high percentage of the vote and presumably win the electoral college as well. That means you've swayed a large portion of the American people to at least give you their vote. If a vote is close, less of a mandate.

Obama had a mandate in 2008 which was thwarted in many ways by the Republicans, he had less of one in 2012. There were lots of problems in this year's election. Democrats put up a weak candidate, interference from Russia, James Comey etc. People voted for third parties far more than they had ever before. Too many voters choose based mostly on a gut feeling about a candidate's personality. People are already regretting their choice. I suspect more will follow.

Neither candidate won a majority of the votes cast: Clinton got 47.8% vs Trump’s 47.3%.

kmoney said:

There has been a lot of talk about whether or not Trump has a mandate and that isn't my interest here. It's about the idea of having a mandate in general. If a president wins the EC and the popular vote, does that necessarily they have a mandate?

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A mandate is earned only by winning a vote by a significant majority of the voters. Even if Clinton had won the electoral college, the margin at the ballot box as it played out wouldn't have been enough to represent a real mandate.

ok doser said:

he won when he shouldn't have

by all rights he should have washed out of the process early in the primaries and faded into obscurity


instead he miraculously won the primaries

then, hillary should have had no problem at all in putting him down like the sick dog he is

instead, nobody cared that he called women pigs, called Mexicans rapists, was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women's crotches and may have colluded with putin to sabotage the dnc


and he won :dizzy:

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Trump is my hero !!!

man·date ˈmanˌdāt/ noun noun: mandate; plural noun: mandates 2. the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a candidate or party that is victorious in an election.

trump has a mandate

/thread

ok doser said:

man·date ˈmanˌdāt/ noun noun: mandate; plural noun: mandates 2. the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a candidate or party that is victorious in an election.

trump has a mandate

/thread

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So, under that definition, every single elected official has a mandate? Then why say any of them have a mandate, if it's synonymous with winning the election to their position?

hard to argue with a dictionary definition :idunno:

ok doser said:

hard to argue with a dictionary definition :idunno:

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Why? Are dictionaries infallible?

Ultimately, a word means what most of the users of that language use it to mean, and the writers of dictionaries attempt to record that.

In political analysis, it's pretty clear that when people write "This president has a mandate", they mean something beyond "This president was elected", or they wouldn't say it. So yeah, that definition seems to be lacking.

Perhaps the definition doesn't give enough clarity. Perhaps it means more than "the authority normally vested in the office", and instead means "the authority conveyed by significant political will of their supporters". It doesn't really specify how that electorate conveys that authority.

I understand the way "has a mandate" is normally used to mean that there is enough consensus behind that candidate that opposition can't reasonably resist.

Hence the reference to how big of a portion of the electorate supported them. Large support means it would be foolish to counter, because the will of such a large portion of the people is behind them. From that perspective, Trump doesn't have a mandate, since the will of the electorate is so clearly divided.

On the other hand, and probably in the way that matters more from a practical perspective, the electorate gave control to both houses to the same party, so there may be a mandate in the sense that the rules of the game make it hard to resist.

DavidK said:

Why? Are dictionaries infallible?

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no, of course not

why? do you think there was a typo?

dk said:

... it's pretty clear that when people write "This president has a mandate", they mean something beyond "This president was elected" ...

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why do you think so?

he won the election and he has a majority in each house

how much more of a mandate does he need?

ok doser said:

why do you think so?

he won the election and he has a majority in each house

how much more of a mandate does he need?

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Sorry, I was bad and went back and edited a bunch onto my previous post.

From the point of view of party control, looks like a mandate. From the point of view of the political will of the electorate, it's so clearly divided that I don't see a mandate.

so you prefer a definition that includes a majority?

a simple majority or a strong majority?

DavidK said:

So, under that definition, every single elected official has a mandate? Then why say any of them have a mandate, if it's synonymous with winning the election to their position?

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Right, that definition lessens the usefulness of the word. At the very least I don't think most people mean that when they use the term and that's what I'm talking about in this thread.

rexlunae said:

A mandate is earned only by winning a vote by a significant majority of the voters. Even if Clinton had won the electoral college, the margin at the ballot box as it played out wouldn't have been enough to represent a real mandate.

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I agree that a significant majority of votes should be part of it. But I'm thinking about what a mandate even means. Is it reasonable to take that "mandate" to mean the majority wants the platform you campaigned on? In some cases, probably, but I don't know if someone can necessarily say that based on how many votes they got. Although, depending on how you define "significant" it could weed out some of the more cloudy scenarios.

"Mandate" and "Landslide" are matters of opinion.

Democrats claim 51-49 win a mandate. And I don't disagree. The only problem is when they lose and they demand the winners work with them. Even though they do not do the same.

kmoney said:

Right, that definition lessens the usefulness of the word. At the very least I don't think most people mean that when they use the term and that's what I'm talking about in this thread.

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Trump has the special power of the PEOPLE behind him. Wait and see !!!

kmoney said:

I agree that a significant majority of votes should be part of it. But I'm thinking about what a mandate even means. Is it reasonable to take that "mandate" to mean the majority wants the platform you campaigned on? In some cases, probably, but I don't know if someone can necessarily say that based on how many votes they got. Although, depending on how you define "significant" it could weed out some of the more cloudy scenarios.

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All a mandate really means is that you have a large body of support for your agenda. Trump has tried to claim that the Electoral College gives him a mandate, but the EC is 538 people. No one cares what they think except one time every four years. Even if you buy into the value of the institution, they aren't the point of a democracy.

fool is partially right that it's largely a rhetorical device. But the notion of acquiring a mandate with 46% of the vote is ludicrous.