Albert R. Hunt, Columnist

Trump Needs to Earn His Mandate

Polls give him the highest negatives of any incoming president in modern history.

November 20, 2016 at 4:20 PM UTC

Albert R. Hunt is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was the executive editor of Bloomberg News, before which he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor at the Wall Street Journal.

Not on board.
Photographer: Mark Makela/Getty Images

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The tens of thousands of nonviolent protesters taking to the streets against Donald Trump are exercising their constitutional rights. But they are wrong to declare that Trump is not their president: He won legitimately and, support him or not, he will be president of all Americans.

That's not sufficient for his chief cheerleaders. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Trump's designated White House chief of staff, asserted that the president-elect won an "historic landslide" and Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, claimed he won a "mandate" from the voters.