Obama was around for a second term, long enough for the recovery to be felt.

I think the primary thing that happened was due to the backlash of Obama being *1) black and 2) highly competent. Without Trump, the establishment Republicans were as boring as ever, so Clinton might have had a chance.

But then Trump came in and made racism great again, id est started saying the quiet parts out loud, which gave the voters permission to express their hatred openly.

And establishment Democrat corporatism was at its height. Obama was responsible for the disposition matrix (massive drone strikes burning villages), the FISC and the massive surveillance state. And we expected Clinton to be even worse: The Republicans may have been dastards. Trump may have been pure evil, but the Democrats sure were not friends to the US public.

And so Trump won with a minority, but by the Electoral College. And we underestimated how bad he was going to be, much the way we did with George W. Bush.

What's crazy is the US elected Trump again knowing in advance exactly the kind of monster he is. I don't buy the Trump regrets: Either the US constituency is very manipulable and they got played with the culture war, or it is very ignorant, and doesn't take seriously the civic duty of voting in its own interest.

In 1980, Reagan won by a landslide, largely supported by the Religious Right, who didn't care about any policy except eliminating abortion access. From then on, anti-abortion = Jesus, and (possibly coincidentally) Christian church membership has been suffering ever since.

But that might be an indicator that human beings are just very susceptible to certain kinds of messaging. It's why nations restrict gambling, false advertising, confidence ploys, and so on. It's why phishing and social engineering are matters taken seriously by cybercrime divisions.

Human beings are, in fact, that gullible.

And until we figure out how to counter it or effectively regulate it, then the ultra-wealthy who can buy massive marketing campaigns will have a technological advantage.