>>Let's start with the mandate question. As of earlier this week, Trump was losing the popular vote by 1.7%.
Did the Republicans win the national popular vote in Congress? Nobody knows or cares and nobody is shrieking "Not my Congress" or claiming Congress has no mandate unless the Republicans won the national popular vote. Because that's not how you win in Congress. Congress, like the Presidential election, is done on an electoral basis. So anybody with a modicum of sense knows there's no point concocting alternative calculations that have nothing to do with the process. Except when it comes to Trump. You can invent anything you like to criticize Trump because Trump is naughty and two wrongs make a right.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
