We Need A Referendum On The Phrase "Referendum On [insert sitting president]"

Full disclosure I started this out as a quick little “here’s what happened in the elections last night” blog and 4 hours later here we are. Fuck the phrase “referendum on [insert president].”

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Yesterday was Election Day 2017, with the nation’s eyes and at least one of mine fixed on Virginia. You’re seeing much hype, much analysis, much conjecture, much hyperbole over these results. The reason is simple: Trump is the president and he’s not up for re-election until 2020, so the closest the political sphere — from pundits to analysts to politicians themselves — can get to a tangible electorate response to his presidential performance is to focus on other races, painting them as representations of Trumpism vs anti-Trumpism; painting them as a “referendum on Trump.”

Devastating video from @CNN. This quote from a senior Republican adviser is… wow. “Total Dem sweep. Crushing numbers. It. Is. Over. This is a referendum on Donald Trump and his presidency.” pic.twitter.com/z3b3lDJ77E

— Matt Ortega (@MattOrtega) November 8, 2017

This phrase “referendum on [insert president]” is not new. It’s cliché and goes back a long way. I hate it. A quick google search shows that both “referendum on Obama” and “referendum on Bush” were very commonly used, in the same context, during similar midterm or off-year elections.

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Hell here’s a “referendum on Abraham Lincoln” from 1862, as National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty writes in 2010, literally titled “A midterm referendum on Abe Lincoln.”

History tends to show that midterm elections are never particularly good for the sitting President. In 2006, many Republicans were moved from their seats due to dissatisfaction with George Bush’s policies. In 1994, Republicans swept the House as a referendum on the policies of Bill Clinton. Even one of the most revered Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was not spared the anti-incumbent sentiments during the 1862 midterm elections. Not only did Lincoln’s party lose the House, but Abe Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield even voted for the opposition.

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I can’t stand this phrase. It’s like every single thing that doesn’t go the sitting president’s way is because the country hates his policies. It ALWAYS has to be a “referendum on” the president. Right now you can’t read a thing without being smacked in the face with the phrase “referendum on Trump.” Every election. Every poll result. Every approval rating.

Hey look, the fucking weather in Korea is a referendum on Trump!

Interestingly, we already had at least one “referendum on Trump” 5 months ago in the form of a Georgia special election.

Republican Karen Handel went on to beat Jon Ossoff by 3.6 points in the most expensive congressional race in history and that the most promising “referendum on Trump” up to that point died overnight (Trump won Georgia by 5.1 points last year).

Yesterday’s gubernatorial race in Virginia was coated in this same representation, a “referendum on Trump.” It delivered about a 9-point win for Democratic candidate Ralph Northam.

And Democrats yesterday celebrated victories across the country. It was undoubtedly a great night for them.

They even tossed out a nice little twitter chirp.

There is indeed plenty of truth to the notion that voters turned out and made their decisions fueled by anti-Trump passion. CNN writes, “Almost six in 10 Virginians disapproved of the job Trump is doing as president, according to exit polling. Half of the Virginia electorate said that Trump was a major factor in their vote on Tuesday; of that group, twice as many said they saw their vote as a way to voice opposition to Trump as said they voted the way they did to express support for the President.”

But you cannot treat every single thing that doesn’t go Trump’s way as a referendum on his presidency. Especially when the exact same kind of things (elections) have not gone sitting president’s ways for CENTURIES. You can’t point and yell “if this happens it’s a referendum on Trump!” and then only claim it when the chips actually do fall the way you want them to fall and declare it a signal the electorate is clearly anti-president.

That’s incredibly selective reasoning. Yes, Trump and the GOP suffered defeats yesterday. But remember, Trump lost Virginia in the general election, Virginia has only elected a governor from the sitting president’s party ONCE since 1977, Republicans had gone 4 for 4 in specials leading up to yesterday, and there’s plenty of debate over how much Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie did or did not embrace “Trumpism.”

Some say his campaign was “Trumpism without Trump.”

Some say Trumpism only works against Hillary Clinton.

(lol Hillary dragged again, what a shocker)

End of the day my point is this: the pendulum of power continues to swing in this country. It always has and it always will. Sure, the president factors into some people’s votes, some more than others, and to higher degrees in some elections versus others, but we can’t declare it a damn referendum on said president every single time his/her party loses something. It’s such a lazy attempt to attach defeats to the biggest political figure in the country or your biggest political opponent. People desperately want to write micro-narratives conveniently supporting their macro-agendas.

Guess what, not everything is some bigly telling sign predictive of the future. Everybody knows way fucking less about what’s actually going on and about what’s actually going to happen than they think they know. This is well-proven over recent years. Sometimes it’s just this: our country is a fiercely divided democracy, and when one side holds significant power, you can bet your ass the pendulum will swing soon to the other side. It always does.

Is that a referendum, or is that simply how it is, how it always has been, and how it always will be?