President-elect Donald Trump won a stunning victory. Early in the morning after Election Day, he immediately claimed a mandate from the people. President Trump exclaimed, “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mission.'' In 2020, his soon-to-be predecessor, President Joe Biden, called for a “mandate for action” in less grandiose terms.
But the truth is that all such claims about duty are nonsense. The victors' claims to the people's mandate are always self-serving claims disguised as objective analysis.
It is difficult to say where the claim of a national mandate originated. The Constitution requires no such thing. Because the Constitution does not require a popular vote for the office of president, it can be interpreted as requiring citizens and politicians to respect a mythical mandate from the people who vote for the electors and then vote for the president. Shouldn't.
Perhaps the origins of the national mission lie with President Andrew Jackson. His re-election campaign in 1832 became a referendum on, among other things, controversial policies. us bank. In 1832, the bank's supporters wanted to renew its existing charter two years before it expired. Mr. Jackson vetoed the recharter, arguing that the bank was too powerful and corrupt and unconstitutional.
After re-election, Mr. Jackson said the people gave him permission to wage war against the banks (Mr. Jackson never used the word “mandate”). In a message to ministers, he wrote:[ed] His re-election is the people's decision for the banks. ” He then ordered all federal funds removed from the bank, thereby rendering it inoperable.
Jackson's idea of a national mandate was rightly ridiculed by Congressman Henry Clay. If the president had a carbuncle…they meant that by re-electing him they were recognizing his carbuncle. Clay also noted that voters choose candidates “just as a man chooses his wife, for better or for worse,” but without endorsing “any bad opinion or quality that person has.” . Clay's distinction has always held true, especially now.
The idea of popular duty, established by the late 19th century, is all too appealing. One 19th-century commentator complained that the framers of the Constitution “could have foreseen that popular elections would result in public confidence in the dominant candidate.” However, this was more than a little unfair. Because the Founders did not know that eventually all state legislatures would choose their electors through universal suffrage. Nor did they imagine that the electors themselves would serve as rubber stamps for voters. The Jacksonian popular mission exists only because of these two unexpected practices.
The public and commentators often focus on who won the presidency, rather than the size of the Electoral College margin or who won the popular vote. In fact, it is sometimes said that even the losers of the popular vote have a mission. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) I said this Regarding President Trump's victory in 2016. But a mere majority in the Electoral College is never a reason to claim that a majority of the people have a voice and tacit support for a long-standing legislative agenda.
Indeed, some voters support everything Mr. Trump stands for. However, many of his voters were simply deciding between the two main candidates being proposed. Millions of people were simply sending a signal that, taken together, they preferred one candidate over the other. Additionally, some voters despised both candidates, even though they had voted for one or the other.
So while it is true that voters supported candidates and all candidates supported policies during the election, it is true that those who voted for the winner intended to support all the policies that the winner supported. Not true. On the contrary, this claim is contrary to common sense.
My point has nothing to do with resistance. Mr. Trump's legislative agenda will undoubtedly garner support from many elected officials. Republicans will do it because they agree, or because they will bend the knee. They do not want to be elected in a primary, as many of President Trump's Republican opponents have done in the past. Some Democrats may support some aspects of his policies. The main reason is that they come from battleground states and want to be seen by voters as supporting reasonable proposals. Furthermore, if public opinion polls show that the public supports a certain policy, politicians should respond to the public's support.
What we must reject is the attempt to impose on the American people the unwarranted view that “we the people” have simply accepted everything President Trump espoused during his campaign. We didn't do that.
Saikrishna Prakash is the author of the following books: “A Living Presidency” Professor of Law and Senior Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
