Trump claims ‘massive’ mission, but presidents often read too much into their victories: NPR

The president likes to claim that he has a “mission” once he wins the election.

“The great thing is we won by a huge margin. The mission was big,” President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday after being named “Person of the Year.” He talked about a presidential victory in 2024. . ”

This is the same argument President Trump made in his victory speech last month.

“The United States has given us an unprecedented and powerful mission,” he said.

In an interview with Time, Trump even boasted that “some people have been on the whole mission for 129 years.” Trump certainly won easily in the electoral system, but his 312 electoral votes and 49.7% popular turnout are far from the highest in 129 years. His electoral college win was the highest since 2012, when former President Barack Obama won 332 votes.

Trump is also the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, but he will insist on a “delegation” if the president receives less than 50% of the vote, as he did in this election. It’s difficult. In fact, Trump’s popular vote margin was the second narrowest in 60 years.

There is a long history of presidents of both parties advocating for mandates, and the idea that because they won there is the will of the people behind their policy agendas. But presidents often read too much into whatever their mission is. Because there are multiple factors why people vote the way they do. In elections, candidates rarely, if ever, receive full support from voters for every policy position they advocate.

“We really don’t know why voters vote,” said Julia Azari, a professor at Marquette University and author of “Delivering the People’s Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate.” “And one of the things we know about elections, which will certainly be true in 2024, is that they seem to be a kind of broad referendum on the status quo.”

Presidents of both parties have long used the term to assert public support for their policies.

Many presidents over the past century have asserted broad powers, from Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to Richard Nixon trying to save himself from Watergate to President Biden.

During the last presidential campaign, voters repeatedly said they were frustrated by higher post-pandemic grocery store prices than before the pandemic and a lack of affordable housing. Many were also outraged by the number of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border. And they put all the blame on the Biden administration.

Trump used that to win a ticket back to the White House for another term. He has a lot of big things he wants to accomplish, from mass deportations of illegal immigrants to the United States to extending tax cuts that are set to expire next year, some of them controversial.

Trump will take office with full control of Washington. Republicans gained a majority in the Senate and maintained a majority in the House. But in reality, even though Trump won the presidential election, they lost seats in the House of Representatives, narrowing their narrow majority even further.

The House majority was slim, with just 7,309 votes in the three legislative races, according to David Wasserman of Cook Political Report.

So how much of an obligation is that really?

“We see this as fitting into the classic pattern of presidents knowing to some extent that they’re in trouble,” Azhari said. “They know their point of view is controversial. So they use that mandate to say, okay, it’s okay for me to do this, my critics are the ultimate He is trying to suggest that he is not only criticizing me, but also criticizing the public. “

Delegation claims have become popular when presidents are in trouble.

Presidents often invoke the mandate when they feel they are in a political fight.

“Now that presidential politics has become more polarized and more problematic and more difficult in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, we’re really seeing presidents talking about election results more,” Azhari said. spoke. I’ve also seen all of this happen in moments of defense. ”

Take Nixon, for example. As the Watergate scandal unfolded, he tried to use the idea of ​​a mandate to garner public support and keep him in the White House.

“If you want this administration to accomplish the mission you have given this administration, we ask you to help us use Watergate to stop us from doing what we do,” he said in a televised address to the nation. Even if elected, it will not be successful. ”

A week after his speech, Nixon, who won in 1972 with almost 61% of the popular vote, called for his resignation, saying, “There are many people in this country who did not accept the mandate of 1972.” I kicked people out. . ”

It didn’t work.

He resigned in disgrace in 1974, but changed his tune almost a decade later. Emboldened, Nixon once again used this mission to claim that it was, in fact, the reason the “elites” had forced him out of office.

“I had a mission,” Nixon said in a 1983 interview with former Nixon White House aide Frank Gannon. “I was going to reorganize the government. I was going to cut the bureaucracy. I was going to give more power back to the states and the people. I was going to get this place in order. They knew it. ”

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Remarkably, after John F. Kennedy’s death, he won a landslide victory in 1964 with 61% of the popular vote and 486 electoral votes, in what many believe to be one of the strongest claims to confidence. Lyndon B. Johnson did not take advantage of this system. A common word.

In 1967, three years after his election, he reflected on his legislative strategy.

“Presidential missions rarely lasted more than six months,” he said. “I wanted most of the promises made in the platform to be realized as soon as possible.”

LBJ, the former Senate majority leader and known as the “Master of the Senate,” knew how to pass legislation better than most presidents. He brought many of the Great Society’s policies to fruition, including the emergence of Medicare and Medicaid, the expansion of Social Security, and the passage of civil rights legislation.

He knew that passing these bills had more to do with numbers, political deals, and relationships than the idea of ​​vague mandates. And Azari argues that even Johnson, who won by a landslide, had no real power.

“Were people really voting for specific policies or voting for the status quo?” she pointed out. “Did they vote against[Republican candidate]Barry Goldwater? When you start asking these questions, confusion quickly ensues.”

Of course, FDR accomplished a lot, too. His first inaugural address, delivered during the Great Depression, is remembered for the famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

But near the end of the same speech he said: “They have registered a mandate that they wish to take direct and vigorous action, if necessary.”

FDR pursued a massive expansion of government with the New Deal to pull the country out of the Great Depression. He passed measures such as tighter regulation of Wall Street and a social security safety net.

1980 was another election when Ronald Reagan claimed the mandate. He won the election in a landslide (although the popular vote was close, with Mr. Reagan receiving just under 51%).

At that time, there were many questions about domestic restructuring and a shift to the right. But again, there were a lot of factors in that election as well.

“[W]ould also simply be a kind of rejection of the status quo,” Azhari said. “What was the frustration that voters felt when Jimmy Carter took office in 1980? If it was a responsibility, was it about economics?” Was it about social issues? Was it about national security? These questions are unanswerable. ”

Azari said the idea that “the president somehow has a unique relationship with the electorate and the electorate, and therefore gives him again a special legitimacy to do certain things,” dates back at least to President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. He said it goes back to the times.

An NPR search of the American Presidency Project’s database of presidential speeches and public addresses at the University of California, Santa Barbara, reveals that the word “mandate” is used to explicitly assert support for a candidate’s policies after an election. The earliest known use was by Calvin Coolidge in 1923.

Coolidge became president after Warren Harding died of a heart attack in 1923. A year later, Coolidge won a landslide victory in the Electoral College, receiving 54% of the popular vote.

In his inaugural address, Coolidge said, “When a country gives confidence to a political party by giving it a majority in Congress, it expects a unity of action from that party that will make the majority an effective instrument of government.” I have a right.” “This government came into being with a very clear and unambiguous mandate from the people.”

Many presidents would follow suit, from Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton to Joe Biden.

“They gave us a mandate to take action on coronavirus, on the economy, on climate change, on systemic racism,” Biden said after winning the election four years ago.

That would have been quite an obligation. There is a danger that the president will read too much into his responsibilities and distract from what is really important in passing legislation.

“At the end of the day, what they can and can’t do comes down to what’s in the interests of members of Congress when they vote on bills,” Azhari said. said.

For Mr. Trump, a narrow majority could limit the broad expansion of what he can accomplish legislatively. No doubt he will try to do as much as he can within his expanding presidential powers, but for lasting social change the president needs Congress.

And, as LBJ pointed out, the president has only a limited amount of time to do so, because the luster of an election, with or without a mandate, quickly fades.