The Trump Rallying Cry That’s Also a Math Problem

Donald Trump and his supporters can’t quite seem to agree: Should he be labeled the 45th president, the 47th president or both?

As he takes the stage at rallies, he is sometimes introduced with both titles, making it almost sound as if he were two different people.

Last Friday, he was treated to a birthday celebration in West Palm Beach, Fla., by a group of supporters called Club 47 USA — which used to be called Club 45 USA, but changed its name. The group’s website, however, is still club45usa.com.

And the day before, Republican senators regaled him with a birthday cake containing two sets of numbered candles — a 45 and a 47. (According to a video posted on social media by one of his campaign accounts, only the 45 appeared to be lit when Trump received the cake.)

Trump was, of course, the country’s 45th president, and now might become its 47th — a number he has plastered all over his campaign’s infrastructure, including the name of his joint fund-raising committee, a URL for his fund-raising website and his grass-roots organizing program.

There may well be a strategy at play here. Trump has not been elected the 47th president, and his embrace of the figure came well before it was even clear that he would be his party’s nominee — making it an attempt to burnish the air of inevitability he often tries to project.