The authors of “How Democracies Dies” say, on page 71, that because Republican leaders did not oppose Trump “the election was normalized. The race narrowed. And Trump won.”
The opinions of party leaders did not matter much, if at all. The presidential selection system favored Trump, the Russians obviously helped, and he blithely ignored the preferences, ethics, values and votes of a majority of Americans. He won an election that, like all others in presidential history, gave short shrift to the concept of a national democracy. In that respect only was this election “normal.”