Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press)

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Political mandates are myths of the mind crafted by those who claim that they have them. Assertions of mandates are also powerful recipes for political disaster and overreach. This is the lesson already in the opening weeks of the Trump presidency. It was the problem when the DFL in Minnesota won its trifecta in 2022, and it also appears to be the problem among some Minneapolis City Council members on the side of a veto-override majority.

There is no official political science definition of what constitutes a political mandate. Some say it is winning office by a sizable percentage of the vote. Others would argue a mandate occurs when a political party captures electoral majorities. Or when it secures the trifecta of controlling both chambers of a legislative body such a Congress, the state Legislature or even a city council, as well as the chief executive office, such as president, governor or mayor. Some might even say a mandate exists if a legislative body can override executive vetoes, as in the case of Minneapolis.

One might be able to argue that a claim of a political mandate may have made sense or was politically palatable when American politics was not so polarized as it is now. But in an era of political polarization, one finds scant bipartisan legislation, little compromise, and a winner-take-all approach to politics. This is not good governance; it is tyranny of the majority.

Fewer than 50 years ago American political parties were what political scientists call coalitional. Within both the Republican and Democratic parties, one would find moderates, liberals and conservatives. Such a configuration made it possible to compromise across the aisles and to work together regardless of party differences. But from the 1970s up to the present, American parties have transformed themselves into ideological entities such that there is very little overlap in their political orientations.

Consider that in 1986 in Minnesota politics, a pro-life Democrat, Rudy Perpich, won the governorship, only to lose four years later to a pro-choice Republican, Arne Carlson. What are the chances that either party would produce this type of candidate now? This example speaks to the ideological sorting out of the major parties.

Claiming a political mandate now is no longer an argument about saying that a party has been given the opportunity to govern and move an agenda on behalf of all the people. Instead, it is based upon pushing an ideological agenda at the expense of what the other side believes. It is a claim for single-party rule.

In 2022, when the DFL achieved a trifecta, party leaders “vowed to govern with moderation” but governed as if they had a mandate and moved their political agenda with little or no input from the Republicans, such as when in the final hours of the 2024 session they rammed through a huge bill. Yet this trifecta had been achieved by the narrowest of margins. In 2022, flip 321 votes in Senate District 41 and the GOP had a 34-33 majority. Three Seats won by the DFL were by a margin of 2,215 votes. In the House, the DFL won three races by a combined 1,251 votes. Change fewer than 2,000 votes and the Republicans would have controlled the House and Senate.

But the Democrats misread their narrow victory for a so-called claimed mandate. They moved a political agenda without any serious input from the Republicans. The result was anger and backlash among the Republicans and now, when they can govern, they are moving their agenda equally without DFL input.

Donald Trump and Republicans claimed a mandate after the 2024 elections. Yet Trump won the presidency with less than 50% of the vote. Voters cast more ballots for Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate than for Republicans. The Republican control of the U.S. House is the closest since the 1930s.

Both in Minnesota in 2022 and across the U.S. in 2024, half the voters voted against the winning party. This is hardly a mandate. Moreover, claims of mandate soon lead to political instability. In 2004, 2008, 2016 and 2020, Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden had trifectas in Congress, only to lose them two years later due to political overreach.

Today across the U.S., there are 38 trifectas with single-party rule. Depending on whether you cast a vote for the winning or losing party, you either have a voice or are silenced because of claims of a mandate. None of this is good. One of the lessons that political scientists have learned is that single-party rule is never good anywhere. Healthy constitutional representative democracies need at least two parties to operate as checks upon one another. Moreover, our Constitution, along with the Bill of Rights, means that our political system is supposed to reflect majority rule while respecting the rights of the minority.

But even if it were not constitutionally mandated, good politics suggests compromise. It is about working together to create lasting solutions and leaving people feeling like they are invested in the government. In business negotiations one is supposed to achieve a win-win for everybody so that everyone feels like they have got something. The same should be the case in American politics. Yet the demands and calls for a political mandate work against good governance and good working relationships.

David Schultz is Hamline University Distinguished Professor and Winston Folkers Endowed Distinguished Faculty Chair of Political Science.