What happened?

The results of the election were more of the same. For the most part it was University educated urban voters versus non-college rural. It wasn't exactly like that in every case but these groupings are too large to ignore. 

The average voter feels more abandoned particularly if they were left behind when the global economy was remade and their earning power stayed stagnant. They are mad and want revenge against the system that got them where they are. Trump was the ticket in 2016 and apparently also in 2024. That he isn't the answer is obvious because it is the core dogma of free market captiralism that needs fixing. 

Bernie Sanders has been waving the red flag for years and saying that the working class was being left behind. Considered too radical by the Democratic party hierarchy, his campaign was derailed in favor of Biden who did his best to ditch his neoliberal past. 

People who worried about the price of eggs and the cost of housing were less moved by women and minority rights and saving democracy. They didn't see the joy in an economy that they didn't benefit from since these people don't play stock markets. The rich kept getting richer while they stayed behind. The GOP also provided red meat in the form of cultural outrage in which they villanized immigrants and other target minorities like LGBTQ people and it worked.

Unfortunately the Republicans will make the mess they always do by pandering to the business class and the wealthy while chipping away at what they call entitlements which includes trying to kill Obamacare. 

A little Latino woman holding a Trump flag was having things explained to her by a young man to no avail and it just made me feel sad.

As we speak, the blue states are bracing for impact and preparing to resist.