We didn't learn anything new about America :
And we never had a chance to learn anything new. People who thought it would be a landslide for Biden were always going to be wrong. There was never going to be a repudiation or a blue (or a red) wave. There is no silent majority, nor are Trump supporters just a vocal minority.
Caveat: You could argue that the extent (post-election) to which Trump's base and some republicans sank to has been surprising, and I'll give you that.
Hard to say whether Trump hurt or helped the republican party at the polls :
Looking at - for instance - Pennsylvania numbers and the fact that Republican congressmen got a lot more votes than Trump, it is easy to lay a hot take that there were many more negative Republican votes for Trump. However, it is not that simple. We don't know how many congressmen actually got votes because of Trump. Overall, the numbers show that Trump underperformed with relation to the GOP, but that doesn't tell a complete story.
Caveat: Trump clearly hurt the party in suburbia, but made gains among non-white voters, but it is hard to disambiguate, especially because of the incumbency effect.
The polls were "accurate" (again) :
Whatever your hot take is, I think that the polls (I mean, high quality aggregates like NYT and 538) were pretty good (especially, but not only because of all the pandemic/turnout/mail-in uncertainties). Every single state and every single senate seat that was supposed to go red or blue went red or blue. See the attached pictures from NYT
There were also exactly ZERO big upsets (and 7 mild upsets) out of 535 house seats. Perhaps if you just follow American politics, you're used to 98% certainty, but if you step out of the red, white and blue sphere, it is pretty remarkable how predictable American elections are (goes for 2016 and 2018 also.)
Caveats: You could argue there was a 3-4% red shift in the tossups, and I'd give you that (though I was sure that it would happen). But really? a 3-4% shift in such a complex system is a big deal?
There was a tiny blue shift (overall) in the presidential election
In 38 states, Biden's margin was +2% or higher than Clinton's. Only in -2- states did Trump have a +1% or higher margin compared to 2016. This was evenly distributed over battleground and safe states. Geographically, the only major surprise was a big red swing in south Texas. See pic below from Nate Cohn.
Compare that to the 2012-2016 shift, and that's all we need to know.
If that's not very clear, take a look at this (from Cook political report)..
Trump never had a plan :
The defining characteristics of Trump : make shit up, survive news cycle to news cycle and bully/fire people to get his way. All those who credited him as an evil genius were always wrong. He is certainly as much a moron as he is evil, and he is certainly not a genius. He has lost 34 out of 36 post-election lawsuits so far, and the two that he won are insignificant. We all know this is just a ploy to create more doubt and stall certification, but even then it has been an absolute shit-show.
American institutions are neither strong nor weak :
But they are getting dangerously weaker by the day. Well.. this one is obvious and doesn't need qualifiers
I was wrong about one thing :
I thought Americans hated "Losers" more and thought people would jump ship sooner. It could still turn out that Trump will be cast into the rubbish dump of history soon, but as of November 19, I am certainly wrong.
