By Mike Wood
PEACHTREE CORNERS, Ga. | Does Donald Trump have a mandate from voters?
Yes, he won the electoral votes last November to become president.
Yes, he won the popular vote, too, but only with a plurality. He did not get over 50 percent of the popular vote.
Therefore, such a win is not a mandate for him.
However, Republicans also won control of both the House and Senate. This so-called trifecta win may be a mandate for the administration and the Congress together to govern in a more assertive conservative manner. It is not a mandate for Trump to usurp Congress’s prerogatives, to ignore federal laws governing terminations of personnel, and to allow Elon Musk to slash and burn the federal bureaucracy and then replace it with who knows what!
Well, we already know some of what, for instance:
DOGE: looking more and more like the Office of Government EVISCERATION.
Office of Personnel Management: Using the Office of Personnel Management to intimidate, humiliate, and harm federal workers appears more and more and more addictive to guys like Musk and Trump.
Yoyo Tariffs: Trump’s poorly thought-out, straight-ahead tariffs policy. Right! On again, off again. Up and down. That’s no way to instill trust in government! It not only destabilizes the economy of our nation, but it also dramatically hurts our allies and neighboring nations. Tariffs will increase the cost of living for Americans, which falls most heavily on the working class. (Rich people can afford eggs at any cost.) Funding the extension of the 2017 tax cuts after they sunset in 2025 will benefit mostly high income and wealthy Americans.
Department of EXTERNAL Revenue: A new Treasury Department to collect tariffs from American businesses that import goods from “tariffed” countries. Wait, wait, aren’t the tariffs paid by U.S. businesses and not external countries or businesses?!? Why not continue to use the Internal Revenue Service, as the country has done for over a century?
MAGA 2.0: Make America GRATE Again (Trump’s MAGA 2.0 grates so much more than 1.0 did.)
Our military veterans will suffer disproportionately from the Department of Government Efficiency and Office of Personnel Management staffing cuts. Veterans make up about 30 percent of all federal workers, with an even higher percentage in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including VA hospitals and other medical treatment centers. To compound this harm to veteran workers, having fewer employees working with veterans means the veterans’ care will suffer even more delayed appointments and attention, getting fewer needed medical services, and the loss of compassion these valuable workers provide. Trump did call them suckers and losers, and those who voted for him in 2024 are now at the top of his list.
He can say it again and again, but Donald Trump did not get a mandate in the 2024 election! He is far overstepping the boundary of what a president should do, and needs to be curtailed in his efforts.
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