I keep hearing Republican members of Congress and other GOP talking heads saying that politically they need to deliver on health care reform and/or tax reform. Something. Anything. Because they made that promise to the people, and the people don’t like it when you promise something and don’t deliver.
Some of that is true. People don’t like it when you promise something and don’t deliver. That much is true. However, who are the people? Who was the promise made to? What percentage of them were on board with that promise, thought it was a good thing, from the get-go?
Well, let’s look at some numbers. Vagaries of the electoral process aside, when you’re talking about people, and how the people voted, it seems to me that you’re explicitly not talking about how the election districts voted or how the Electoral College voted. You’re talking about how the people voted.
In that regard, it is easy to see that most people in this country did not vote for the Trump Agenda in the first place, and an even smaller number today approve of the Trump Agenda as it is actually unfolding.
There are about 320 million people in the US. This represents all people, whether of voting age or not, whether voting-eligible or not. It’s everybody. Our sons and daughters, our immigrant population. Arguably, everyone who would be affected by the laws of this land. Of those, 63 million people voted for Trump. When you look at these numbers, that means that only about 20% of the actual US population asked for him to be in the White House.
Taking a survey today, you’d find that of those original Trump supporters, only 80% approve of where he’s going and how he’s doing today. Only 60% strongly approve. Even going with the higher 80% number, that means that arguably only 51 million are on board with the Agenda. That’s less than 16% of the total US population.
Think I’m being too harsh? Ok. Let’s look at just the voting-eligible population (VEP) of 231 million instead of total US population. In that case, applying the same calculations, we net out at 22% of the US voting-eligible population who are looking to the Administration to do what it said it was going to do. (The numbers are only slightly different when looking at it as percentage of voting-age population (VAP) – around 21% in that case.)
So by and large, here’s how I see it. The Republicans can continue to say that they have a mandate to do what they promised the American people they would do. But the numbers tell a different story. The numbers say that the vast majority of the American people – at least 80% of us – would be best served by this President not doing what he said he was going to do.
I for one can’t wait for them to stop doing it.
Imprtnt Ephemera 