Americans have always griped that politicians are liars and thieves. In returning Donald Trump, a convicted felon and notorious peddler of delusions and lies, to the White House, they decided to make it official. The causes of the former president’s victory will be debated – endlessly. The implications will play out over the next years, but some simple conclusions can be drawn.

Trump won as the candidate of change at a time when the vast majority of Americans want fundamental change. He won despite the fact that most Americans say they don’t approve of him. His scabrous campaign, which grew ever more unhinged, served to certify him as the protest candidate. His racism, nativism and misogyny stoked the divisions that Republicans have preyed on for decades. He won those most upset about inflation and immigration, painting the present as a bizarre dystopia and his past administration as an economic utopia, and somehow succeeding in arrogating his catastrophic failure on the pandemic – and the million unneeded deaths it caused – to a........

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