obviously not the biggest problem of the era, but this really illustrates how difficult it has been (at least for me) to put Trump into context with presidential rhetoric paradigms and precedent as we know them. However... https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1335401627050795008

They sort of weirdly illustrate the connection between elections, being a politician, and rhetoric. Pretty much every other president has sought to lead a majority coalition and most of them have *started* with such a coalition. They are invested in the system...

for a bunch of reasons, but one is that it has served them well. It made them governor or senator, then president. by winning majorities, or at the very least pluralities, of those electorates.

Trump won office through an idiosyncratic nomination system that increasingly disincentivies coordination, then won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Majoritarianism doesn't work well for him.

so there will be no Roosevelt-style "I welcome their hatred" - he doesn't have the votes. He's a minority rule president and talks like one, and this rhetoric has consequences.