Listen, we are in troubled times and this is likely only going to become more difficult. I do think listening to music, reading a book, or watching a movie helps to get the mind working in a different direction for a bit. 

I can tell you nobody thinks you are or would compare you to a MAGA nut. Really. You are a passionate good-hearted guy, and I get where you are coming from. I know what MAGA represents to you and that you definitely are not and would not want to be aligned with that in any way. 

I do want to address what you said here:

That Democrats should have run the board; that we should have won all branches of government and not by a slender margin, but by a HUGE margin when faced with one of, if not, the worst presidential candidate in the history of this country.

Yes, this is true in the sense that it certainly seems like the vast majority of people should have seen Trump for what he is. This is definitely how we all feel. The problem is, the margins within the registered voter populace in the states that swing these elections, do not provide the space for a huge victory. They just don't. To have a huge victory, a landslide victory, you have to capture votes from the other side. And the truth is, for either side, Democrats or Republicans/MAGA, you are only going to swing a small number into your camp. So, no landslides will occur. You just can't win enough voters for that to happen. So, you are squeaking it out. I think when Trump beat Hillary in swing states, he did so by amazingly tight margins, like in some counties 50 to 100 votes. He barely won. This election was basically a repeat and the people that swung the election for Trump were not actually voting for him, they voted for pet issues they had they felt were not addressed in the ways they wanted by the Biden/Harris administration. This is why someone like Andi worked so hard to get out the vote in a place like Georgia. If you got just 50 to 100 more people to go out and vote, it could change the outcome of the election. If Harris had won, she also would have done so by some narrow margins. It's the nature of the beast, man. So, yeah, I am with you on the idea that it sure as shit felt like Harris or any Democrat should have blown out Trump, but the reality is, and this hit us all hard, the numbers are just not going to produce a blowout. People did say this, the guy married to a friend of my wife that worked for the DNC said it over and over, I guess. He knew we were in a really tight race and it was not actually about quality of the candidates...it was about a small group of issues that would tilt just enough voters to swing it to one side. 

I don't understand how people continue to overlook this fact - we lost to the biggest loser of a candidate in the history of this country - or at least in my lifetime - and somehow are trying to declare how "almost" was not a blowout.

I don't think anybody overlooks that. It is true, Trump by far became the worst and most divisive candidate in our lifetimes. He blew Hillary out of the water on that front and she was the previous title holder. I think what has happened is this though, people are not making their choice based on quality of the candidate. I think a lot of people have decided that we are only going to get average to horrible candidates, and so instead of choosing by candidate, they are choosing by who they think will address their issues and who more represents change. Trump is a horrible human being, pretty easy to spot that, but the voters that swung this felt he would take a different approach to their issues and they said fuck it on him being horrible because they pretty much feel all politicians are horrible. So, to them the choice becomes which terrible choice is more likely to do what I want done. I have to say, I don't think most voters think as deeply about this stuff as we do here. We are the exception not the rule. 

This election should never have been even close, and as I have been declaring for some time - Bannon, Trump, and MAGA seriously discovered something about this country back in 2015 and in many ways so many completely missed it, especially Democrats, liberals, and progressives.

Yeah, in a rational world where everybody thought it through like we do but that is not our world. It is a difficult thing to come to terms with, how other people make their decisions and trying to comprehend their thinking. I don't really think Bannon, Trump, and MAGA world discovered how to tap into the deepest and darkest desires of Americans. They just said shit that a lot of fed up people could easily agree with and said it over and over and over and over. Politicians suck! There are too many immigrants! We are being invaded! People want someone to blame, to point the finger at, and these guys just picked the easiest targets. It has to be an easy message. Democrat often go into actual explanations of things, which sadly after about 30 seconds I think becomes "Blah, blah, blah." to a lot of people. 

The arguments that we get into here over things like Israel tend to get very simplified by one side. Israel is killing innocent Palestinians, if you don't stop supporting Israel you are genocidal. Joe is still selling bombs to Israel, he is Genocide Joe. It does not break down that way. But it is very easy to simplify it to that because you are seeing kids getting killed. If you argue for Joe Biden you must also like genocide or at the very least you are supporting it. And we know that MAGA wants to use "Genocide Joe" to their advantage...and did...even though they definitely wanted to give all the bombs they possibly could to Israel to flatten Palestine and kill as many Palestinians as possible. The same MAGA pack ran ads that said Harris was on the side of Israel targeted at Muslim voters while running ads that said Harris was on the side of Palestinians targeted at Jewish voters. This is the trap.

Trump was a weak and horrid candidate. He is intentionally divisive and wants to cause harm to people that don't support him and does not much care if he hurts his own supporters in the process. This is his last go round as president so he is really going to be in don't give a fuck mode because he won't be running for reelection. So, fuck everyone, supporters, enemies, allies, he does not give a flying shit. 

But Trump wants to say he has a mandate. That his victory was huge, the biggest, the greatest, and his followers want to say he has a mandate as well. Problem is a mandate means you won by massive numbers, that the vast majority of the population voted for you...the fact is, that did not happen. That is the fact. It was predicted the Senate would shift back to the Republicans, they hold an advantage in that area, and that the House would be very tight. So, nothing was really a surprise, and no there was no huge victory. His victory was shocking for some of us, but it was not huge, not in any way. That is fact. Saying he has a mandate, that plays into that same trap as the "Genocide Joe" thing. It is delivering the message MAGA wants delivered, a false message that advantages them. 

You are right, the Democrats have to fight better, learn from mistakes, and hopefully agree to a good change of direction. The pendulum is likely to swing back when voters don't like how things go for the next two years. As long as MAGA has not totally wiped out our government and made us North Korea before then...which the experts seem to think would take a lot more than two years to accomplish.