Many conservative commentators have hailed Donald Trump’s victory in the recent election as a “landslide”. It would appear – not all the votes have been counted yet – up your game, yanks! – that he will get 50% v 48% of the popular vote and 312 v 226 (58% v 42%) of the electoral college vote.
For comparison, in 1924 Calvin Coolidge got 54% of the vote and 72% of the electoral college although he may have been aided by the presence of a third-party candidate.
Calvin Coolidge won bigly.
Rather puts a damper on things. Not least because Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, has to be the worst candidate I have ever seen: cowardly, inarticulate, trivial, vacuous. She couldn’t even decide if she was the continuity candidate or the change candidate. I really do struggle to think of somebody worse. McGovern ’72? Carter ’80?
So, how come Harris did as well as she did? The communist media certainly helped. By the way how did the media get so communist in freedom-loving America with a free market in media? Is it something to do with the “Fairness” Doctrine?
But there is also academe once an incubator of intellectual curiosity, now a factory for the production of brain-dead communists. How did that happen in free-market America with a free market in education?
We would also have to look at big-government programmes like pensions and healthcare which give a powerful incentive for people to vote for high-spending candidates. And the Democrats were adept at using the abortion issue.
The truth of the matter is that if the Democrats had put up an only slightly more plausible candidate than Harris they would have won. They might even have won fair and square. I hope the people who Trump will be appointing to senior positions in the coming weeks are aware of this and will be focused on evening up the odds.
By the way, seeing as the 1924 election came up – entirely by chance you understand – here’s a little quiz for you. There were three candidates that year: Calvin Coolidge (R); John Davis (D) and Robert LaFolette (communist). Which of them said this:
If any organization, no matter what it chooses to be called, whether Ku Klux Klan or by any other name, raises the standard of racial or religious prejudice or attempts to make racial origin or religious belief a test of fitness for public office, it does violence to the spirit of American institutions and must be condemned by all those who believe, as I do, in American ideals…
Answer below the fold.
Davis.
Didn’t expect that did you? And he still swept the South.
“Vote Blue, no matter who” and eight years of constant “Orange Man Bad” rhetoric.
Harris (or any Democrat candidate) has a baseline probably around 45% because something like 90% of African Americans, 2/3 of California (where ballot stuffing is legalized), more than half of New York, etc. would vote for Pol Pot if he was on the Democrat ticket just to spite Republicans.
The media and education system are dominated by the left. “Brainwashing”, indoctrination or conditioning, is not entirely effective – but it is not totally ineffective either.
Calvin Coolidge did not have to face a fanatically leftist media and a fanatically leftist education system – whose indoctrination prepares people for the lies of the media (including the entertainment media – on which the Harris/Walz campaign spent truly vast sums of MONEY)>
Nor are the media just “anti Trump” – if, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis has been the Republican candidate the “reproductive health” (read baby killing) propaganda would have been pushed up to an extreme “he wants women to DIE!” the media would have screamed, 24 hours a day – 7 days a week, and men would have been told “he wants to ban porn and make sex outside marriage a criminal offence!”.
None of these charges would have been true – but the media would have done it anyway, they tried it with President Trump but it was less effective as people know that Donald J. Trump is socially moderate – most (most) people know he is NOT going to turn women into “baby making machines till the DIE!” or “ban porn and make sex outside marriage a criminal offense!”
The media lied, lied endlessly, about President Trump – but the media lies were less effective than they would have been against Governor DeSantis who actually is a social conservative (rather than a social moderate – as President Trump is).
The post also ignores the basic fact that election fraud is much more common now than it was in 1924 – we have all seen the odd “bumps” in count figures, the Republican candidate for XYZ will be ahead in the count, and then, suddenly, there will be a “bump” and the Democrat will be ahead in the count, then the trend lines will continue (but with the Dem now in he lead – due to the “bump”).
We will never know how much of the popular vote Donald John Trump really got – but it is certainly rather more than the official numbers (which ignore the fact that Democrats in the big cities rig-the-vote).
The vote this time was “too big to rig” – it was not that the Democrat and RINO officials suddenly became honest people (they remain the criminal filth they are) – it was that there really was a Trump landslide that overwhelmed them. Although we will never know just how large it really was.
John Davis was a fairly conservative democrat. A bit like Al Smith, he broke with FDR over the New Deal and campaigned for the Republicans in 1936, 1940 and 1944. As a lawyer he was involved in supreme court challenges to New Deal legislation as well.
I was a bit surprised when people started calling it a Trump landslide, although I’d thought for over a year it was Trump’s election to lose. It was the best Republican result since 1988 though (a different age) and given the backing Harris had from political elites, the media, big business, military-industrial complex, show business etc it is a remarkable result even considering how smart Trump played it and how godawful Kamala and her campaign were.
Some Democrats and RINOs (the sort of “Republican” who is a friend of the “international community”) will not be too upset with the victory of President Trump – after all he can now take the blame for the international economic crash of 2025. Indeed the LIES (for that is what they are) have already started – for example on Saturday the “I” newspaper in the United Kingdom was blaming X,Y,Z, bad economic news in the United Kingdom on “Trump”.
Yes bad economic news in the United Kingdom is, according the media, due to “Trump” who is not even back in office yet – and I am sure the American Corporate State media will do the same – especially when the (long baked into the cake) economic crash of 2025 really gets under way.
The Corporate State, including the Corporate State media, have not given up on their plans for international “governance” for the control of ordinary people by officials and “experts” following international policies – and crushing all dissent as “Hate Speech” – with people made totally dependent on government and corporate (sadly government and the corporations are joined at the hip) income (income that can be “cancelled” if people do not behave as they are told to behave).
It may be that the return of President Trump is just a temporary reprieve before the Western world finally goes into the nightmare of international tyranny – we shall have to see.
The grim struggle against the “international community” (the international Corporate State) is the key conflict of our time.
The answer of Elon Musk to the international community, made in public at one of their own events, was blunt….
“Go fuck yourselves – I hope that is clear”.
Had President Trump lost the election Mr Musk would now be bitterly regretting that language – as his company, and he himself, would be being destroyed by the “Justice” Department.
I doubt, Patrick, if Mr Davis would have done that (destroyed all dissent) had he been elected President in 1924.
It really is a very different world now – the Democrat candidate for President in 1924 (although a bit of a government interventionist) was NOT a totalitarian, fanatically determined to crush all dissent and create international tyranny with ordinary people reduced to de facto serfdom.
And that is the objective now – around the world.
Quite so Martin – although there are many things in the 1924 Democrat Platform that we would disagree with, to compare Davis to the creatures of evil of today (the servants of the international community) does not stand up – he was nothing like them.
But one must remember that they do NOT campaign as creatures of evil – according to the more than one Billion Dollars spent on the K. Harris campaign (and according to the Corporate State Media) K. Harris was a “fiscal conservative” and her campaign was about “defending FREEDOM”.
Gavin Newsom of California has already started his campaign – and he is also NOT presenting himself as the totalitarian servant of evil that he is. On the contrary he, and the media, present him as “defending freedom” as a “defender of fundamental liberties”.
Due to Credit Money these evil people have unlimited funds to lie in election campaigns – and the media back up their lies.
They present themselves as defenders of liberty – even as they plan to utterly exterminate what is left of liberty.
Meanwhile the sabotage of the Trump/Vance Administration has already started – with the effort of Swamp Creature Mich McConnell (who was bought and paid for years ago) to install a “Republican” (RINO) leader of the Senate who will, de facto, block the appointment of key people – and prevent vital policies being enacted.
An honest Democrat, or RINO, campaign would be interesting….
“I am a creature of evil – and I intend to help enslave you and your family, to help stamp down the boot of international tyranny on your face for all eternity”.
But that is NOT how they campaign, and that is NOT how the media present them – indeed it is the opposite of how they are presented.
I am not in the least bit surprised that so many congressional elections have still not been called 10 days after voting ended.
I strongly suspect that as usual the Republicans will do poorly in such closely contested races. Trying to win an election in a blue state (yes I mean you in particular Arizona* and California) is similar to winning a coin toss against Hilary Clinton. The fix is alive and well, just not on a national scale this time round. The importance of stealing just one or two seats in what are closely balanced houses should not be underestimated.
* Arizona may have narrowly voted for President Trump but at a congressional and senate level its vote counting and more importantly gathering processes remain deepest blue.
As I noted at the weekend there are many third world countries who count election votes faster and less crookedly than certain American states. For the US media to say what goes on in places like Arizona as ‘normal’ is gaslighting. Same media would be calling for sanctions and worse if it happened in some poor country where the winners didn’t have prior CIA and/or State Department approval.
Martin – correct.
New technology was supposed to make the process faster – not vastly slower.
However, if anyone really complains they get sued – by the computer company that makes the machines and/or by the people who organise the corrupt mail-in ballots and so on.
It is not just corrupt judges and biased jury selection that one has to face – Soros funded groups will go after the law license of any lawyer who dares oppose election fraud.
Remember the Bar Associations, like all institutions now, are controlled by the left.
As for the press – the behaviour of the even the “conservative” Wall Street Journal concerning Arizona in 2022 was despicable.
There is no point in talking to “journalists” about even obvious election fraud.
The Democrats still frauded heavily. They just limited themselves to “safe” forms of vote fraud and didn’t hit the emergency turbo-boost vote fraud button the way they had in 2020.
There was vote fraud in 1924 too, but back then both the Democrat and the Republican parties practiced it, and there was an unspoken agreement for both sides to keep the fraud down to a discreet and deniable level.
Comparing Coolidge’s landslide to Trump’s doesn’t seem fair. The percentage of the population that is financially beholden to the bureaucratic state, whether directly or indirectly, is exponentially greater today. This includes NGOs, non-profits, contractors, corporations, industries and their lobbying arms, consultants, law firms. The bureaucratic maze is self perpetuating, a revenue stream for many. Then, of course, there is the Entitlement culture. It seems, to me, that this gives the “statists” a built in base, a significant numerical advantage.
Take the win, people.
It isn’t a win yet. The count still goes on; technically the Democrats could still steal a majority in the House. Maybe they won’t be able to do it, but there isn’t any legitimate reason at all why a county in California or Arizona with 300,000 votes is still counting a week later, and only 80% finished.
If the Democrats are allowed to steal the House at the last second, Trump’s second term will be hobbled from the start. We will see an unending stream of indictments and impeachments, subpoenas and special hearings to “investigate” whatever trivial nonsense the Dems can use to get some airtime.
Everyone is dancing on the field while the final seconds of the game tick away, and the kickoff returner still has the ball, weaving his way through the band toward the endzone …
Whether or not Trump’s win was a landside, let’s give credit where it’s due. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and went on to steal the Democrat base.
Amazing
Ferox – yes the Senate Majority is thin (most likely due to election fraud in some States – the “bump” in the vote count trend lines).
And the House is worse (we shall have to see how thin the Republican majority is – or whether there even is one) – and few people grasp just how despicable the Democrats there are. It is not 1924 – the doctrines of many Democrat House members are Marxist (of the “Critical Theory” sort).
As for the “Republican Senate” – certain Senators either support the Deep State or can be blackmailed by it.
The international forces of tyranny (of evil) have not gone away.
The international forces of tyranny (of evil) have not gone away.
Of course not. Did you expect they would?
I remember when Reagan carried 49 states in 1984, trouncing Walter Mondale.
@Paul Marks: well, if people are trying to set up Donald Trump for problems next year around the markets and underlying economy, it helps to avoid unforced errors, such as enacting sweeping tariffs. In any event, the US, given fracking and less insanity over Net Zero than in Europe, already has a significant competitive edge, at least in terms of input costs.
So whatever else one can say about this election, I hope Trump forgets all this crap about tariffs being his favourite word.
She could not even decide if she was the pro-Israel candidate or the pro-Palestinian candidate.
And she could not decide whether she was the open-border candidate or the border-wall candidate.
(Any other indecisions come to mind?)
She did decide, apparently, that she was the sex-change candidate.
A little more subtle this time but still cheating by the Demonrats. I’m not sure they wanted to win.
I’d not call them “indecisions.” Half of her statements were truth, half were outright lies.
It all depended upon to whom she was speaking. She would say anything that she thought her audience wanted to hear.
It was clear that Kami’s statements were meaningless lies, and not to be believed.
She ran TV ads in Michigan supporting Hamas, and in NY supporting Israel. Simultaneously. (Imagine the reaction had Trump done that! But our “media” ignored it.)
The only actual pertinent truth was that she was the Second Most Liberal Senator in the US in the 21st Century (per The Hill.)
Bobby:
The question is, which half is which.
🙂
Speaking for myself, i believe that half of her statements were bullshit, and the other half were also bullshit.
Bullshit as in: she does not know or care whether they were true or not.
But it seems that a Musk-financed outfit broadcast her NY ads in Michigan, and her Michigan ads in NY; or something like that.
That’s the way!
Well … she was representing California, so basically she was telling her constituency what they wanted to hear. It does not necessarily reflect her principles.
PS: It is worth quoting the greatest of all Marxes:
This is Kamala’s brand of Marxism.
The 5 Most Lopsided Presidential Elections in American History (video).
“A little more subtle this time but still cheating by the Demonrats. I’m not sure they wanted to.”
I have wondered this myself. How many times and in how many ways can they (the Dem hierarchy) shoot themselves in the foot before we wonder, if it’s intentional, if they are throwing the game?
Re P’Nut the Squirrel story. Daily Wire had a follow up:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/peanut-the-squirrel-marked-for-death-days-before-he-was-seized-in-raid
Any insights as to how to view the results, if it truly is a realignment election? I know I was shocked to hear that Trump won the Reservations.
My theory of the value of Democracy is that the stupid votes on the 2 sides of any issue will cancel each other and sometimes that works.
If there is a free market in education in the USA, pray tell what all this talk we heard recently about the US Federal government ‘forgiving’ (writing-off) student debt?
Or less subtly, I read that the Federal Department of Education had since its founding in the late 1970s under James Earl Carter, spent $2,000,000,000,000 dollars. Take off three zeros and I still fail to see a free market.
Perhaps some premises need to be verified?
Vote Blue….
you mean, red?
Mr Ed makes a very good point.
And yet, i have to wonder whether the broad autonomy of US universities, whether State or private, plays a role in their wokeness.
I mean, if you are given taxpayers’ money with tenuous strings attached, why would you not support getting even more taxpayers’ money, with even more tenuous strings attached?
It’s a matter of people responding to incentives — or more precisely, of people not responding to incentives, losing out in the promotion ladder to people who do.
The partisanship of the media, i find slightly harder to explain in terms of incentives.
I am hearing that the Trump administration may get rid of the Department of Education. If so, that would be a Good Thing. Read through the Constitution of the United States, and you will not find a mention of the Department of Education, nor Housing and Urban Development, nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I would give Elon Musk a copy of the Constitution and tell him to get rid of anything not mentioned in it.
The USA has 50 state governments, and they can impoverish their citizens as they wish. The Federal government is there to do just what the Constitution says it can do, and nothing else.
@JohnK
I am hearing that the Trump administration may get rid of the Department of Education. If so, that would be a Good Thing. Read through the Constitution of the United States, and you will not find a mention of the Department of Education, nor Housing and Urban Development, nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I would give Elon Musk a copy of the Constitution and tell him to get rid of anything not mentioned in it.
That would be an idea, however, I think that would be SHOCKINGLY difficult and they will no doubt go for the low hanging fruit first. As to the department of education, that has been something Ramaswamy has been talking about constantly. I think it is a great idea. The department of education’s budget is $238bn which is about $5000 for each school kid in the US. Better to give it back to tax payers, but if not give it to the parents as a tax credit and that would pay for a low cost private school. Have the state match it, and you’d have a thriving market in education and the quality and control would very quickly go through the roof, and the bullshit would be gone in an instant.
However, it’ll be VERY hard to do. If you want to see the future, all political wisdom is encapsulated in the Yes Prime Minister series. In fact they made an episode about EXACTLY this. “The Department of Education”. Sir Humphrey’s reaction at time index 19:15 is pretty much what you’d expect:
Hacker: No problem, we will abolish the DES (Department of Education and Science)
Appleby: Abolish it!! Abolish education and science? That would be the end of civilization as we know it.
FWIW, I think Trump’s pick here is a really good one (some of the others made me go wtf). But by having two amazing people working on it more can get done, and also it will allow Musk to defer anything relating to agencies regulating his businesses to Ramasawamy.
Two simple fixes that they can do very quickly (and Musk has suggested this) is first of all insist that everyone returns to working in the office full time, and second to move some of the agencies’ headquarters all around the country away from DC. Something that would be good in any event. That alone would probably cut the workforce by 30%. (FWIW, there is another Yes Prime Minister episode about this too. Like I say, the font of all political wisdom.)
Martin – November 12, 2024 at 10:29 am:
Look at Somaliland. Not Somalia; it’s the area that was the British colony before independence. They have effectively broken away from Somalia, though no one will recognize them. (Most other African countries have secessionist movements and object to any others.) They held an election recently, which went off quickly, efficiently, and even peacefully (no mean feat in that part of the world). Voter registrations were verified by retinal scans!
Which is to say that a poor country with no international recognition does it much better than the US.
FYI, one reason why California takes so long is that ballots were accepted via mail until midnight last night. As of this morning, they could begin their final counts.
(So long as they are postmarked by election day, they must accept ballots that arrive within seven days of election day.)
I don’t think this is a matter of wealth or international recognition – it is more a matter of size, plus the federal system where each state has some independence in the way they run their elections and count their votes. I’m not saying that some features can’t be improved and some issued fixed, just that the US elections can’t really be compared to any other country, because of the sheer size of the country and its form of government.
There are many jurisdictions in the US which count the vote quickly and accurately.
In the places where the counts are dubious and/or slow, that is by design rather than the result of some sort of systemic American failure.
Entirely by coincidence, pretty much all of those places are controlled by leftist political machines.
Fraser:
I suspect that the States spend more than that. Or am i wrong? I find it hard to believe that the States spend on education only what the DoE sends to them.
Which means that the DoE can probably be abolished without any need to send those $238bn to parents.
Yes Snorri – States and local governments spend vastly more than five thousand Dollars per child.
And there is no real connection between how much money is spent and education results.
There is no mention of education in the Constitution of the United States – so under the Tenth Amendment Federal spending on this matter, outside DC and military bases, is unconstitutional.
The counter argument is, as always, the “general welfare” – which deliberately quote these two words out of context
The “common defense and general welfare” is the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers then listed in Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution of the United States.
Contrary to corrupt judges there is no “general welfare spending power” – if there was there would be no need to list spending powers in Article One, Section Eight, and the Tenth Amendment would be without meaning.
In short, the vast majority of Federal Government spending is unconstitutional – and has been since at least the 1930s.
As for the 36 Trillion Dollar debt (which costs a trillion Dollars a year just to service) run up to pay for this unconstitutional spending – the debt is, and has been since 1933, in fiat Dollars (also unconstitutional, but that is another matter) and so can be paid in fiat Dollars.
There is no need to create fiat Dollars (from nothing) lend them out to corrupt Wall Street types and borrow them back again – at a higher rate of interest.
If the government is going to produce fiat money (it should NOT – but, again, this is another matter) it should use the fiat money to fund its spending directly – not allow the financial industry types to wet their beaks. The inflation would be no worse than it is now.
If you are borrowing physical gold then you do indeed need a Mr J.P. Morgan (or whoever) – but to borrow fiat Dollars that you yourself have created, is insane.
The government creates these fiat Dollars – from nothing. No gold or silver is borrowed – so there is no need for the bankers and other such to be allowed to wet their beaks.
I do not support this system – but that is the system that is presently in effect, fiat money NOT physical gold or silver.
In 2020 judicial activist judges, using COVID as an excuse, allowed emergency measures during the election in the US, wherein all registered voters in many states were sent a mail in ballot they could return by post, by dropbox, by dropoff at a polling station, instead of voting in person. The Democrats pursued mail in ballots, soliciting their return in person door to door, using paid party workers to deliver them to voters and collect them in vast numbers. This was done preferentially in Democrat leaning neighborhoods. This ballot harvesting worked so well the basement-dwelling Biden, clearly already showing evidence of his senile dementia whenever he was allowed out in public, garnered about 10,000,000 more votes than Harris did this election, under less favorable rules for mail ballot harvesting. Hope that helps.
Biden may have lost in 2020 had he run under 2024 election rules of reduced harvesting ability for mail in ballots.
@Paul Marks
And there is no real connection between how much money is spent and education results.
That’s true. Last time I looked Chicago Public Schools had a budget of over $30,000 per student[*], and their education results are utterly disgraceful. For example according to this 20% of CPS students are considered proficient in reading on state tests, and 17% are considered proficient in math on state tests and a graduation rate of 77% (though one wonders how they can graduate if they can’t read or do basic math.) I live west of the city in a suburb that has a school system regularly ranked as one of the best in the country and their budget is $22,000 per student, with vastly superior results.
[*] CPS budget is $9.9billion and it has 325,305 students which is $30,433 per student.
Incidentally, i made a perfunctory effort to find out the budget for the EU’s equivalent of the DoE: the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture. But did not find it.
Perhaps, after the DOGE is closed down in 2 years’ time, Elon and Vivek can move to Brussels and do the same service over here. (It might take longer.)
Elon and Giorgia get along pretty well.
Funding of USA education:
The states provide their own funding for the gruntwork of education. They pay for buildings, and teachers, and supplies, and programs.
The federal Department of Education mostly exists to bring the concepts of federalized DEI to the states, and to ensure that federal mandates are imposed and empowered.
Thank you bobby for confirming my suspicion that those $238bn do more harm than good!
Slightly off topic, I have been baffled by some of Trump’s picks for his cabinet. Kristi Noem? Then Hegseth? He is a great guy but he has basically zero administrative experience. It’d be like putting me in charge of Microsoft. And of course Gaetz? I mean WTF? He is a creepy weird dude that seems to be riding the MAGA horse to maximize his profits.
But the one that bothered me most was Rubio for Secretary of State (which for our British readers means Foreign Secretary), a guy who is pretty much a neocon, and not at all aligned with Trump’s foreign policy. However, I think I know why he chose Rubio now, and I think the reason tells us a lot. It seems that Lara Trump has been talking about how if she is called she’d be honored to serve as the Junior Senator from Florida. I think he moved Rubio out the way to get that seat to Lara Trump. Partly as a reward (her work definitely made a difference in getting Trump elected) and as a sure ally in the senate. And if she wants it, who can possibly deny her?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Lara Trump. She will be a really fabulous senator. She is an excellent speaker, has a very fine mind, is an excellent debater and interviewee and has great political instincts. And she is easy on the eyes too, which matters a lot in this video clip world we live in.
So there are other things going on that I for sure don’t know about. I guess we will just have to see it all play out. I’ve heard a theory that Gaetz is a patsy. The idea is to get him rejected so that Trump can beat up the senate for not being MAGA enough. Trump plays four moves ahead of everybody else. I think the truth of the matter is that both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense in this administration are going to be named “Donald Trump”, and Hegseth and Rubio are more a means to an end.
Fraser Orr: My guess is that Trump tried the traditional approach in his first term, seeking out and hiring people with specific competence and expertise in the various cabinet areas.
That didn’t work out well. He ended up with people who actively worked against him.
Now, (since you can always hire expertise), he’s picking people whose main quality will be loyalty to him, and submission to him as the big cheese.
Biden has almost completely left his cabinet to itself. In September, he had his first cabinet meeting in a year. (Not sure that he was actively contributing to any process by then, anyway.) I’m guessing that, in the Trump White House, there will be cabinet meetings daily.
And, yeah, Trump will be the actual head – the decider – in each department. But he will have people in those spots who he will trust to be acting in furtherance of his goals, and not of the goals of the Deep State.
(Noem and Gaetz are very weird choices, unless you assume that they will merely be carrying out his daily instructions. Noem is a bit vacuous, and Gaetz is . . . yeah, weird. But I bet they can both be rabid Trumpists.)
This will be one of those mysteries that we simply watch with interest. We elected someone who is unconventional, specifically because he is unconventional. We ought to let his unconventionality run and see where it takes us.
And, lo and behold, here’s Trump doing a presser about why he made these choices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcRsf8MnBs