SOME FACTS ABOUT AMERICANS
# of Americans: 327,200,000
# of Americans who are eligible to vote: 250,000,000
# of Americans who voted in 2016: 142,300,000
# of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016: 65,600,000
% of Americans who voted for Trump: 20%
*Never* lose sight of this.
# of Americans: 327,200,000
# of Americans who are eligible to vote: 250,000,000
# of Americans who voted in 2016: 142,300,000
# of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016: 65,600,000
% of Americans who voted for Trump: 20%
*Never* lose sight of this.
PS/ While we don't have enough data to generate hard numbers on this, if THE HILL is correct that 53% of Republicans believe Trump is a better president than Lincoln was, that means *about* 10% of Trump voters hold this opinion. And some of those don't even know who Lincoln *is*.
PS2/ In other words, I and everyone else can feel pretty confident that the percentage of *all* Americans who both know who Lincoln is *and* think Trump is a better president is probably about 8% or so of the U.S. population.
Now go Google all the things 8% of Americans believe.
Now go Google all the things 8% of Americans believe.
PS3/ I deliberately included kids. When we start getting down on America in the Trump era, we're making a statement about "what America is," and "what America is" *isn't* just what adults make it and make of it, but what *all* of us do—including all the kids blameless for Trump.
PS4/ 20% is a national average. If you live in a red state the percentage is higher, and if you live in a battleground/blue state the percentage is lower. So if you're in a median neighborhood in Ohio, chances are that less than 20% of the humans in a mile radius voted for Trump.
PS5/ What this means is that those who want you to feel like you live in "Trump's America" take a scenario in which you *likely* live in an area (given migration/habitation trends) where only 18%-19% of humans voted for Trump, and try to make you think the figure is 90%, instead.
NOTE/ I used rounding here, as we're working with large numbers (i.e., I started with America's population and worked down, rather than working up from election data). The result is that I've *overstated* the raw number of Trump voters, though the overall percentages are correct.
