I'm pretty Liberal but:

Republicans lack a clear mandate

Is utter bullshit. Republicans were handed very clear victories. Narrow, but clear. All western democracies sent a clear message, the current state of affairs is not good. Every western NATO country that had elections unseated the incumbent government.

Trump’s plans for deportations, ending birthright citizenship, political retribution, and tariffs

This is Trump's fluff that the powers that be will entertain until they hold up more pressing priorities for the Republican party. My take on each one is:

• Deportations — That's going to happen. They've played the blame game too long on it. But it's likely that the admin will find it's Elian Gonzalez moment, wave that as victory and then put the whole thing in the rear view. As "the worse case" has serious economic effects that won't fly high among the others in the party without some Congressional stomach for expanded H-2A, which detracts from more pressing concerns for them.
• Ending birthright citizenship — That's not happening. It is stupid that we're even talking about this. Denaturalization, maybe, but nixing the 14th Amendment? No. The momentum isn't there, people have bigger fish to fry.
• Political Retribution — The people he's targeting aren't idiots and have access to a wide variety of legal counsel. Trump's under the impression that it'll cause them the same amount of headache he had in 2021 to 2024, but the reality is Trump picks shitty lawyers because only shitty lawyers want to represent Trump. Trump routinely doesn't pay people and that's made his legal issues magnify by 10,000 fold. Everyone else doesn't have nearly the same headaches Trump has with legal affairs and it's mostly because Trump stiffs people. Other people actually pay their lawyers.
• Tariffs — I mean it's likely to happen. It'll be a FAFO moment for Trump for sure. But if it gets out of hand, his party might be able to reach concessions with Democrats to end any declaration of an emergency Trump tries to use to authorize the tariffs without Congress. It's going to suck, and I will absolutely enjoy the schadenfreude that comes from it but not really enjoy the jacked up prices of things, but I mean things suck as is. So if it get twice as bad as it is now, I'll only care about half as much as I do now. We all just refuse to address the crux of the issues with inflation so we'll just keep on, keeping on. All of us are too busy blaming political people for inflation to really solve the issue, so maybe in another ten years or so everyone will finally chill the fuck out and we can work on the actual issues. But I'm not holding out hope.

There’s likely to be backlash as voters realize the gap between what they wanted and what Trump plans to deliver.

That's almost a given. It's one of the reasons Republicans are trying to get their ducks in a row for the 119th Congress. But with the narrow majority in the House, it will only take one or two asshats from the Freedom Caucus to fuck it up. And I absolutely feel that they're going to do their usual asshattery at least once during the session. Mike Johnson isn't some visionary, he does well to plan his lunch for the day. With all the to-dos the GOP has, it's going to run into the too much water going down a narrow drain issue.

It's one of the reasons the transition team is trying to break things out into sole EO, requiring law, and direction. It's also the reason Trump doesn't want to deal with the 300 day window on his appointments. He wants them hitting the road right away. People want to think Trump wants recess to avoid hearings. Trump just wants recess appointments so that they can get to work on day one, avoiding the hearings is a nice bonus. They have a lot of things they want to get through and it only goes so fast and they're pretty much betting on midterms being hard to them.

But all that said, THIS:

Republicans lack a clear mandate

Is utter trash. They swept the fucking floor. Us Democrats need to take the L, look around, and figure a path for midterms to make a wide enough push in both chambers. But it ain't going to happen just running around and yelling "TRUMP BAD! TRUMP BAD!" Democrats need to provide a clear policy agenda that is easy to articulate.

All told Trump is up about 2m votes and Harris down 7m compared to Biden in 2020.

This is not a massive increase in support for Trump but it is a significant drop in support for the Dems that lost them the election.

The mandate "myth" is irrelevant. They won all 3 parts of government , they got their mandate.

In the UK we had Brexit and it was extremely close at 48% to 52%. Yet ever since all we ever heard about is how it was decisive and people treat everyone in the UK as if we're pro Brexit. In our elections the tories got 42% of the vote yet massive majorities so dictated what we did.

In short the problem is not the number of voters, it is the electoral system. In the US system if you win enough votes in the right places you win decisively. That seemed like a good system when there was a consensus. Not so good when there is division.

The solution in the US is the same as the UK - electoral reform is needed. The problem in the US is the same as the UK - no one will deliver that as the parties that win power are the ones who benefit from the rigged system.

I don't know if the author is coping or if they actually believe this.

Despite his win, Democrats performed unexpectedly well in down-ballot races, flipping Senate seats in swing states Trump carried and maintaining the House balance.

Uh... They lost the Senate what the fuck is this guy even talking about?

So the Republicans have the Senate, the House, the white house, the supreme Court and the popular vote, but the Democrats are doing great? Got it.

Who gives a fuck if you have a mandate if you won a trifecta? In 2 years, maybe some working class voters will realize they were sold magic beans and put a check on their power but mandates are a bullshit concept. Exercise power when you have it.

These people already relieve that Trump was sent by an invisible sky wizard to… I don’t know what, save them from having to give a damn about anyone other than themselves? These are not people swayed by facts or reason. We have known that for a decade (or more).

What backlash? He still was voted in despite him saying exactly what he would do… This is what the country wanted sadly. We are in for some dark times.

Donald Trump narrowly won the 2024 presidential election, securing the smallest popular vote margin for a victor in modern U.S. history, with just 1.6% over Kamala Harris.

Wouldn't that have been Bush in 2000 at -0.51%?

Edit: I guess that was the unpopular vote margin.

More liberal cope? JFC people, liberals got their ass handed to them again, as usual. They simply lack the ideas and will to win.

Whatever. Prepare to defend yourselves against the fascists. Or don't. Far as I'm concerned, I'm on my own from here on out.