Monday, November 28, 2016

What did Donald Trump do today?

He claimed, via his press secretary, that his 306-electoral vote victory was a "landslide" and a "blowout."

16 of the last 20 electoral vote margins were larger, and Trump is only one of two electoral vote winners in the past century to lose the popular vote.

Later, Trump himself continued a multi-day Twitter tirade regarding his popular vote loss. He first castigated the Stein and Clinton campaigns for seeking a recount, then lashed out at CNN and their reporter Jeff Zeleny for questioning Trump's claim that "millions" of illegal votes had been cast for "#corruptHillary." Trump's assertion matches one from an unsourced story picked up by the Trump-friendly conspiracy site InfoWars.

Official tallies at the moment show Hillary Clinton ahead in the popular vote by about 2.2 million votes, or 2.4% more than Donald Trump received. 

Why should this bother anyone?

  • It's bad to undermine confidence in American elections.
  • Claiming that "millions" of votes were illegally cast against him makes it sound like Trump is very emotionally sensitive on the subject of the popular vote.
  • Presidents-elect should probably not be getting their news from websites that claim the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.