On half-clever commentators – Bret Stephens in NYT:

‘He lost the Midwestern states that gave him his victory four years ago. He appears to have lost Georgia, which he carried easily four years ago, as well as Arizona, which no sitting Republican president has lost since 1932. What ground he gained among Latino and Black voters, according to early exit poll data, he more than lost among white men, particularly those with college degrees, not to mention seniors.
Certain half-clever conservative commentators have noted that Trump improved on his 2016 vote total by several million votes. But Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton’s total by even more.
Most remarkable: Trump lost despite 56 percent of Americans saying they were better off now than they were four years ago, according to a Gallup survey from September. He lost despite Republicans gaining seats in the House, doing well at the state level and having reasonable hopes of holding the Senate. He lost despite the damage that progressive rhetoric about defunding the police and banning fracking did to some Democrats. He lost despite all the usual advantages of incumbency.’

(…)

‘Among his fervent supporters, or those who drew better ratings or poll numbers from his presidency, this was at least understandable. They had TV careers to preserve, political jobs to fill, a cult leader to worship.’

Read the article here.

I mostly agree with Stephens. This was not a landslide, but it was not 2000 either. Yes, approximately 70 million people voted for Trump, which says among other things a lot about the distribution of information and the utter distrust of many Americans, and probably rightly so, of the political class.
As is rather well-known, the repetition of a lie turns the lie into something that resembles truth.

We’ve been told that anger is a positive force that will provide us with change.
But the anger of the other side is called resentment. And it’s at least as powerful.

The political class in the US and in most other countries is, with several exceptions, far away from the wise men Plato was dreaming about.
When politics becomes a profession and the people, more or less, decide your job security, then to quote a colleague, all bets are off.