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I really don't like making grand pronouncements (I think it's a bit narcissistic) but since I seem to have a reputation on The Motte I think it's only fair to take my licks:
Blah blah blah, words words words, excuses excuses, feel free to get your licks in now.
A) Voter memories are short. I have actually overestimated how well they can process and recall events older than, say, a month. Won't make that mistake again.
B) Because of this, very little of the crashing out we're going to see over the next few weeks matters. At all. It just can't, nobody can carry those emotions forward long enough.
My pared down theory of the election is that throughout October and into November, huge swaths of median voters saw Gas prices at $4+ dollars (worse for Diesel) and thought "well fuck this." And then on the day, they voted for the "fuck you, current ruling party" option by default.
There were two minor portents that I underindexed on at the time: I was at my barber and discussing, among other things, gas prices. I said I'd found a place that had the Premium stuff for $5.00. One guy waiting SNAPPED to attention and said "where TF are you finding gas for $5?" Like it was CLEARLY an important matter on his mind, that he felt the pain deeply and regularly when he went to fill up his work truck.
Second, an estranged friend of mine who had been vehemently anti-liberal for a long time, and had been quiet on social media for months leading up to the election, reposted an anti-GOP Nick Fuentes clip which basically castigated their over deference to Israel rather than focusing on domestic issues. I'd talked to this person about Israel before, but I'd never gotten the sense they were THAT sensitive to the issue.
Both of these were, in hindsight, just signs of 'average' people getting very, very annoyed with the fact that they were paying more at the pump (and elsewhere) whilst the current ruling party twiddled thumbs and demanded support.
Biden had the same issue. He recklessly depleted the Strategic Petroleum reserve to try and stem this problem. It might have helped but didn't really work.
Looking at its recent level/movements, Trump tried approximately the same thing.
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