"Loser Trump!"--The Democrats' version of Birtherism.

Trump won the electoral college vote.  Hillary won the popular vote, but it doesn't count.  

Result:   Trump goes around the country holding a "Victory Tour" in front of crowds.

Maybe that popular vote really does count after all, not just to Trump but to Democrats trying to impede Trump.

Trump's legitimacy as president comes from his having won the electoral vote in the manner in which it is currently compiled, so the great majority of "referees" are calling this a Trump victory.

***Hillary made the concession call.

***The news media calls him the "President Elect".

***Obama treats him like the "President Elect".

***There is no widespread gathering or organization of defecting electors.

Trump won.

The Electoral College votes are not actually awarded in the way people think they are awarded and that is the source of the weakness of their legitimacy.   Trump understands that, which is why he is buttressing his legitimacy right now by claiming the mantle of "the will of the people."   He is declaring victory.

He is documenting it in two ways.  

Visible rallies, in which he forthrightly calls himself the victor, the President Elect, the voice of the people.  He is thanking people for the gift given-and-accepted: their support in his victory.   In sales it is known as "assuming the close."   And the close is not that he won on a technicality, it is that he is the choice of the people.

Delegitimizing opposition.   Again, he assumes the result he wants, a classic example of "begging the question."   He calls the opposition Losers!  Or Sore Losers!   

Democratic opposition to Trump is focusing on a technical matter, and if they actually succeeded in getting some electors to abandon Trump they would create a crisis, not a legitimate president.   Legitimacy comes from being able to present oneself as having the mandate of the people, as it is counted in the way people think it is counted.  People think the agreed-upon rules are that it is winner-take-all on a state by state basis with the votes of states weighted by adding their Senators and Representatives.   On that basis Trump won.  

Telltale admission:  The popular vote matters.

In fact it is more complicated than that and that rule is an unenforceable suggestion, not a requirement, but the mismatch between public expectation and actual law is why this is a time bomb.  But now, given Trump taking office, it is the Democratic Party goal to slow or stop the damage Trump might do to policies Democrats like.   They need to weaken Trump, and the best way to do it is to take away his most powerful asset, his claim to have the mandate of the will of the people.   

Democrats could say, clearly and repeatedly:  Loser!  Trump would hate this.  It would likely cause him to do self-destructive things.   He would fight back but he has a problem:   Trump lost the popular vote.  

Trump has already done what he can to protect against that--assert that he actually won the popular vote because of all the fake votes, but this backfired on him.   There is no evidence of widespread fraud, and his asserting the voting was rigged diminishes his own legitimacy.   Even Kellyanne Conway couldn't affirm that position.  She needed to pivot and divert.  Trump needs to assert that he got votes, legitimate votes, not that the vote count is fraudulent.  That was a mis-step for Trump, but he recovered and took the initiative and beat Democrats to the punch, calling them "sore losers."  

Trump beat Democrats to the punch

Trump won this media battle.  The public has gotten used to the idea that Trump won fair and square by the rules in place and that he has the support of the people.  Democrats lost their best chance to define him as a loser and a fake.

Would the public accept that kind of de-legitimization?  Apparently, yes.  The "Birther" de-legitimization is a case in point.  Trump consistently questioned Obama's birth, notwithstanding the Hawaii documents showing Barrack Obama was born in Hawaii, the contemporaneous birth announcement published in two newspapers, and had the records of the Hawaii hospital.   Trump asserted it and it stuck.  De-legitimization is successful in weakening a president.   Trump did it in the face of objective documentation.  

Wrong approach for Democrats

Democrats actually have the simple fact that Trump lost the popular vote by millions.  Trump cannot delegitimize the vote count because he needs the vote count.   

Democrats can say it and say it and say it:   

Donald Trump is a loser.  

He is a big, fake loser.   

He is an interloper.  

He is a minority president. 

The public rejected him big time. 

He won on a technicality, but actually lost.   He doesn't speak for the people.  

He spits in the face of the people.   Minority Trump.  Trump the Loser.

This is not a risk free approach.  Trump could assert that he lost the popular vote only because he lost California by four million votes and that Democrats are dissing Michigan and Pennsylvania and places where he won a majority.  Can Trump dismiss California as a place over-run by kooks and illegals?  I suspect that could be his approach: run against California, the "left coast", the Hollywood snobs, the "fruits and nuts" of the joke.   A lot of Americans resent California for its wealth and prosperity.  

But that, too, has risks for Trump.  It forces him to say that some states don't count, which gets in the way of a unity-message.  Worse,  it forces Trump to start explaining and making excuses, and this gets Trump mired in exactly what he does not want: explaining that, yes, he lost the popular vote but it doesn't really matter.    The more Trump tries to explain the popular vote loss, the more Trump validates the fact that he lost the popular vote and that it matters.  By discussing it and minimizing it he makes it an issue.  Whenever Trump is explaining away a popular vote loss he is undermining his own legitimacy.  

The popular vote:  Republicans want to believe.

Trump's power is that he is speaking for the people of the USA against the powerful forces of gridlock.  Democrats reduce that power when they deny Trump has that validation and the more they make Trump defend the notion that he actually is speaking for the people of the USA the weaker he is.

[Note to readers.  Check out the comments to yesterday's blog post relating to the Electoral College and whether it is wise for Democrats to question its legitimacy.   Also, please note that this blog as added tabs to make sharing easier.   Look to the left on full size screens, and at the bottom for people seeing the blog on a smart phone or pad.]