Worse than that, millions don’t even rely on media. They just hear about it from some barely-informed coworker, friend, or family member. Everyone is blaming the democrats’ messaging and policies, when huge numbers of people are just going by vibes, tribalism, and whatever they hear at church.

The uphill battle here was to fight the pervasive lie that it’s Biden’s fault that everything is expensive and trump knows how to fix it, but you can’t use explanations longer than five words and you can only reach the information-seeking population who mostly already agree with you.

Republicans spent the last 50 years or more pushing religious participation and conflating their ideologies with religious beliefs. They can’t be defeated without a similarly insidious strategy. We are truly post-information, and the merits of the candidate are virtually irrelevant.