I don't buy that. Obama won a decisive electoral victory over McCain, along with a 10.5M vote advantage in the popular vote.  If there was going to be a whitelash, I'd expect to have seen that in 2012, but we didn't.

Romney was a stronger candidate than McCain, and had strong appeal to moderates in both parties, as evidenced by being elected the Republican governor of Massachusetts.  But Obama won the electoral vote decisively again, and still won the popular vote by 5M.   

Had Obama been allowed to run again, I think he could have beaten Trump to earn a third term.

Trump/Clinton was a choice between two bad candidates, and Trump barely won.

Since then, we've lived in very unusual circumstances, with a global pandemic that was unprecedented in modern times, both parties shifting dramatically away from the center (making America much more divided than usual) a presidential candidate withdrawing from the race with less than four months before the election, etc.  Remove any of those factors and its tough to say who would have won the elections (or even who would have secured the party nominations).

In 2020 Biden ran as a "transition candidate" (his words) with a woman of color on the ballot, which created another opportunity for a whitelash, but instead Biden crushed Trump.

Does racism exist?  Absolutely?  Does it influence some voters?  Undoubtably.  Is it the reason Trump was elected?  I'm sure it was a factor, but its impossible to say to what extent, but I think previous election results (especially 2012 and 2020) point to it not being the main factor.

I think this was another year with two bad choices, and we've learned in the post mortems that Harris's campaign was badly run, but if she'd had more than 3 months, I think there was a realistic opportunity for her to beat Trump.  They were only 1.5% apart on the popular vote, and while Trump had a solid electoral win, the margin in many of the states he won was very close.  

Obama decisively won two terms, after which Trump beat an all-white Democratic ticket, then lost to a ticket with a woman of color on the ballot.  It doesn't follow that Trump's second term is a result of the country being afraid of having another black president.

I think Steven has a better argument implicating Republicans, and I agree with him that Haley was a more qualified candidate (she was the candidate I supported), but I don't think she lost because of race.  Polling showed a huge majority of Americans believed the country was headed in the wrong direction (whatever that means).  People were upset with the government for a variety of reasons, and Trump was able to convince enough voters that he was the anti-establishment candidate, and (in the general election) that Biden/Harris's policies were responsible for inflation. 

My initial question was how the events of January 6th didn't immediately disqualify that particular rancid hot dog from EVER being considered for president again. We can argue the merits of why Harris lost (and the think pieces are abundant) but it should have been to another Republican.