| Shyam Balasubramanian | TNN | Nov 11, 2016, 12:32 IST
Now that he is US President-elect, Donald Trump seemed to make a ...
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Now that he is US President-elect, Donald Trump seemed to make a comeback on Twitter, after reports that his staff had prevented him from the microblogging platform in the run-up to the elections. In a tweet, he kept up his attack on the media, an on protesters who have been making noises against him.
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NEW DELHI: Now that he is US President-elect, Donald Trump seemed to make a comeback on Twitter, after reports that his staff had prevented him from the microblogging platform in the run-up to the elections. In a tweet, he kept up his attack on the media, and on protesters who have been making noises against him.
’ demonstrations that have been held at a number of places across the country.
“Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!”
Trump’s tweet brought out the irony of the past few days. Trump himself had said during his campaign that he might not accept the result of the election. He had claimed that the elections had been rigged against him. But that was at a time when Hillary Clinton was considered the easy winner of the elections.
Trump had said he would accept the result only if he won, sparking off outrage with opponents claiming that he stood against the principles of democracy. It is now these very same opponents who are protesting Trump’s election, where he won a majority of electoral college votes even as Hillary seems on track to win the popular vote.
Trump is hardly the first candidate to take the White House with an electoral college victory while losing the popular vote. But the list is a short one. The last candidate to win the presidency while losing the popular vote was George W Bush in 2000, who missed out narrowly to Al Gore. Before him, it last happened in the 1888 election, when Republican Benjamin Harrison scored past Democrat Grover Cleveland.
The discord between the total number of votes won and the electoral college seats won could happen because a candidate has won with a big majority in some parts of the country can still lose by smaller margins in a number of other parts. This would give the electoral college vote to the one candidate, while the other candidate could end up with a higher vote tally.