But Trump won the popular vote. He increased his numbers in 90% of counties. He grew across all demographics.
This was not a structural failure. It was very clearly a country-wide mandate.
1984 Reagan's victory was a mandate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_president...
I think if Biden had decided up-front that he wouldn't seek re-election, and the Democrats had been able to field a real primary, Trump may not have won. Instead we had an old man making blunder after blunder during his campaign, followed by a not-all-that-popular replacement that no one selected through the primary process, who only had a few short months to put a campaign together. Frankly I think it's impressive Harris did as well as she did.
"Mandate"... oh, please.
And of course, who really believes the election results when you have Trump saying that Musk rigged some voting machines in his favor.
Face it, the US no longer creates its government from the collective will of its citizens. They’ve replaced politicians with corporate backers for the actual corporations themselves.