Adam Jentleson’s recent op-ed, “Harris said she owns a gun for a very strategic reason,” makes a claim worth revisiting: “In 2016, voters saw Mr. Trump as more moderate than Hillary Clinton.”
Really? Voter results from 2016 tell the opposite story:
“More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in U.S. history.
The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.” (CNN, Dec. 22, 2016).
“Voters” saw Mr. Trump as the charlatan that he is and chose Hillary Clinton. Our increasingly nonsensical Electoral College appointed Trump POTUS, not the voters. In fact, since his entry into politics, Donald Trump has bested his opponent by popular vote exactly zero times. Republican party leadership, seeing an opportunity to exploit his populism for political power, made Trump their standard bearer. Not voters.
Thomas Walker, Salt Lake City
