Anyone can cherry pick reasons one way or the other.

Trump was impeached.

He was found guilty of sexual misconduct (rape).

He was besties with a pedo and there's plenty of evidence he himself is one.

He attempted to impede a peaceful transfer of power.

She lost to convicted felon and sex pest who was already impeached. It's the fault of the American people as much as her own, but that's embarrassing regardless.

The thing is, there isn't supposed to be such a thing as a default candidate. We're supposed to have a primary race where candidates come out of nowhere and try to make the case for their platform. It's been a while since Americans got that luxury.

There has not been a statistically significant number of times that those things have happened in a presidential race to say whether they contribute to winning or losing. By that logic, no time in American history has somebody won an election against a senile, elderly, white man. Biden had to drop out of the race because it'd have created a logic paradox for either of them to defeat the other in the election.

I agree with your position that even the most popular candidate we've had in a long time -- Obama -- most likely would not have won that election, but we cannot know for sure. What we do know is that if you're up against stacked odds, then you need to maximize -- over-perform -- with the quality of your candidate.

I voted Harris. She was better than Trump in every conceivable way no doubt -- and yes, including on Gaza and most certainly Ukraine, Climate Change, LGBTQ+ rights, etc., -- but she was still just an average candidate. Can't have average against stacked odds of billionaires putting their weight on the scales of democracy.

The only persons I think could've won that is probably 2016 Bernie, or Michelle Obama.

If Harris wants to run again in the Democratic Primaries, then sure, go for it. I hope we have lots to choose from. But honestly, I'd rather Michelle run.