In case you haven’t been paying attention, the reason President-elect Donald Trump gets to put that fancy title before his name is because he won the election. He didn’t win it outright of course; Hillary Clinton won the direct popular vote by 2,332,814 votes.
And counting.
Thanks to Green Party candidate Jill Stein‘s successful bid to force a recount in Wisconsin the direct popular vote margins are still in flux. Trump’s crack-of-dawn Twitter ramblings aside, the gap between those who voted for the 2016 ‘his and her’ White House is probably set to widen. In Clinton’s favor.
Direct Popular Vote Is Not A Matter Of Perspective
That Trump’s mind strays off the beaten path into a fantasy world of his own creation is neither here nor there at this point. He thinks he looks 35, he’s the least racist person ever. We’ve seen it all before and for the record, no he doesn’t and, no he isn’t.
What’s more unusual is that some of Trump’s advisors seem equally willing to dip their unmentionables into the broiling quagmire of post-truth American debate.
Take Paris Dennard, for example.
Speaking to CNN’s Don Lemon, the avowed Trump advocate was complaining about plans for recounts in some Midwestern states when Lemon brought up yet another of Trump’s recent tweets.
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016
Slip Sliding Away
Lemon pointed out that it is:
“False for Trump to say that the electoral college vote was a landslide. It was certainly an upset, but it was far from a landslide. You go back to 1980, he had a smaller margin than the Reagan elections, George H. W. Bush, Barack Obama’s two elections — he tops only George W. Bush’s two narrow wins. Can he call this a landslide? Why is he calling this a landslide? It’s not a landslide, he got way more than most people thought, but you can’t really call this a landslide.”
Dennard’s defense smacked of desperation.
“I think you can if you look at how much he… how better he did than Secretary Clinton…”
Lemon sounded genuinely incredulous as he interjected:
“You’re changing the definition of landslide? “You can say he did better because he won, but can you call something a landslide when it’s not actually a landslide? Is that what you’re doing?”
Dennard reiterated his absurdist stance:
“If you look at how well he did against Secretary Clinton in the Electoral College, it was a landslide.”
Exasperated, Lemon simply shut him down again:
“It wasn’t a landslide, Paris. A landslide is only a landslide when it’s the definition of a landslide. That’s not the definition of a landslide. That’s you changing the definition of a landslide.”
Fool Me Thrice
Dennard’s third attempt fared no better. He only managed a few weak words of defense before being cut off by Lemon yet again:
“I’m asking you the definition of a landslide. Yes, he won, he won by a big margin, but it wasn’t a landslide.”
Lemon snapped before asking the other guests:
Why is he saying that?”
Nobody seemed to know — aside from Dennard, that is. With no apparent sense of shame, he resorted to the kind of explanation more familiar to kindergarten playground disputes:
“Because it was a landslide.”
Laughter and smiles ensued.
Watch the whole exchange here:
Featured Image via screenshot from VidMe video
