I don't believe facts or anything real controlled the outcome of this election.
The things that seems to matter these days are people's perception of reality, their feelings and vibes, and messaging. It isn't about policies or what actually happened in the past. It is about what people feel happened in the past and people's vibes on a candidate. Maybe that has always been true to a certain extent, but today's propaganda tools have turned it up to 11.
Elections these days are controlled by the billions in dark money unleashed by Citizens United and the use of that money to maximize the effectiveness of algorithms and AI to target voters to craft alternative realties and nudge voting blocks in various directions - to turn up at the polls or to suppress turnout. There is a reason Elon purchased twitter. It wasn't so he could turn a profit. It was to exert power within our democracy.
Hopefully, democrats aren't too far behind in being able to exert influence within all the information bubbles out there. The fact that inflation was working so hard against Harris gives me some hope. The notion that Trump somehow is a generational con man and when he is gone MAGA will die, gives me a glimmer of hope. But when I look at how buffoonish Trump is, at how obviously corrupt he is, and how morally bankrupt MAGA is, and the fact Dems couldn't use all of that effectively to win, makes me think Dems might be too far behind to catch up.