Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

In no sane world should it have been difficult for the Democrats to defeat Donald Trump in 2016. He had no history in political office, and he lost the popular vote to just about the worst candidate the Democrats could have put up. Had the Democrats put up anyone who was less divisive than Hillary Clinton then we are not where we are today.

Likewise this time around, nobody I have talked to seriously voted for Joe Biden on his own merits. They voted for him because he's not Donald Trump. I have had people tell me they don't care if there is fraud and cheating, it's worth it if Trump is defeated. Put up someone with more genuine appeal and you not only get the "anyone but Trump" vote but you get enough undecided votes that there isn't any room for questioning the result.

We need better candidates who generate real support and appeal other than just not being their opponent. Not sure how to get there.

Only one side denies climate change. Only one side denies medical consensus on vaccines and pandemic prevention techniques. Only one side is okay with mocking a disabled reporter (to pick one egregious example among countless).

Yes, if you're red/republican/conservative/right, you're voting for those things, you're signing off on them.

We don't need to "come together and find common ground" on those issues. We need to figure out how truth and decency lost their footing and slipped off the center stage.

Conservatism is not comparable to liberalism. They are not alternatives. It just means a desire to maintain the status quo. The opposite of conservatism is progressivism, not liberalism.

In fact most Republicans in the US are liberal-democrats.

The publicly available polls are done for free by polling companies or by news organizations. Unfortunately some of these companies apparently have an agenda to push. So they skew their sample away from what the likely voters are to get the result they want for propaganda purposes.

I think that the rise of Nate Silver has ironically made this situation worse. He advocates taking an average of polls to get a true view of the situation. So if you are skewing you poll to get a certain outcome and you know the poll will be averaged, you need to warp your results even further.

Ok, disclaimer time - I don't have any inside knowledge or real evidence of any of the above. It does seem to fit however. I can't explain why it seems all the distorting is to make the Dems lead seem bigger than it is - that is, why aren't there pollers on the other side of the aisle doing the same thing?

So you'll have to decide for yourself if there is any merit to the above theory.

This sounds like you suggest there is/was fraud or cheating, which you shouldn't be doing. Not sure if that was what you intended.

I agree with the rest of your post though. Joe here won because of the division in the democratic party. He would have lost to most Republicans. He gathered the most votes ever for obvious reasons. People didn't exactly stay home this year. There has never been more enthusiasm for voting, whether it was for or against something.