Dear President-elect Trump:
Your arrogance overwhelms. So is it with Tweets like this (sent yesterday) that you want to bring America together?
“If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily.”
You LOST the popular vote because the plurality* of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton to be our next president – not you. (*Neither you nor Clinton reached 50%. She had 47.9%; you 47.2%; others 5%.)
Yes, you won the Electoral College – handily at that. You are indeed – and indisputably – the next president.
But, again and again: You did NOT win the popular vote!
Indeed, only ONCE in the last SEVEN presidential elections has the Republican candidate won the popular vote. That’s ONCE since 1992. 24 years ago. Only ONCE. And, as another reminder to you and your supporters before you get too ambitious: In the 2016 election more votes were cast for Democratic Senatorial candidates than Republican candidates.
I get it. You are the incoming President. The Senate and Congress have a Republican majority. There are more Republican Governors than Democrat Governors. The Republican Party rules the political system – except in certain, concentrated geographic areas.
This is more a quirk of how our election system is set up and the internal migration pattern of our population than a result of your appeal. Clearly, the more urban areas trend Democrat; the less urban areas trend Republicans. Democrats are more clustered. Republicans are more spread out… Simple stuff, actually.
Yet, you do NOT have a mandate to govern; much less govern unilaterally without consultation with the plurality of voters – that is, those that did NOT vote for you.
Mr. President-elect you have a choice to make. You can choose to govern by the will of those that voted for you and focus exclusively on their interests. Or you can choose to reach out, engage, appeal to, and invite to the table some of those who voted against you.
Your initial actions do not bode well for indicating that you understand the second option. You have selected a fringe character (Steve Bannon) to be your Chief Strategist, and you have purged supporters of your ex-close adviser Chris Christie from your inner circle in a way that would make Stalin (and Putin!) proud.
If you continue this pattern of totally disregarding the opposition, we are in for a long, tremulous, disruptive, and chaotic times.
You see, we will not be quiet. We will scream and shout every step of the way. We will protest every policy decision you make that disrespects any American, be them of any faith, documented or not; harms the environment; is inhumane; diminishes the arts; or insults intelligence and science.
… And: We will use every legal and non-violent means of resistance to stop your dictatorial tendencies from coming to fruition …
You see Sir: You may be our President, but many of your policies do not represent us. You may have the political power. We have the people power. You do NOT have a mandate.