Post-factual doesn't mean "explanation for a loss". It means "facts don't matter".
Look at the presidential and vice presidential debates. How many times did Trump lean into the mic and say "wrong" to statements that are easily verified with a google search, like when he said "wrong" when Hillary brought up that he said global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese?
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
How about when he said "I never said that" when confronted with tweeting at 3am to check out a porno
Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016
How about when Pence said the Clinton/Kaine campaign was doing an "insult driven campaign" when every "attack" on Trump or Pence was literally just quoting them?
How about how the economy is doing great, we have millions of new jobs, and the stock market is at record highs. But "economic anxiety" was somehow a major issue for Trump voters and they didn't want Hillary to win because that would be "four more years of Obama". Millions of new jobs and the stock market at records highs and people don't want that. Why? Because facts don't matter. It's not so much that "they don't want that", it's that people don't believe the actual facts that that is the current reality, and instead believe the false reality that unemployment is up, the stock market is down, we don't have millions of new jobs, etc. when that is demonstrably false.
Proof. 67% of Trump voters think unemployment increased during Obama's presidency (it went down). 39% think the stock market is down (it's up. It'd "never been higher" at one point). 40% believe that Trump, who lost the NPV by nearly 3 million votes....won the NPV.
This is what "post-factual" means, and it was going on long before November 8th. It's why no matter what Trump did, he kept going up in the polls. "I could shoot someone on 5th avenue and wouldn't lose any votes". "Grab em by the pussy". "Ted Cruz's dad collaborated in assassinating JFK". "Four more years of Obama" (as pointed out, this would actually be a good thing). "When Mexico sends it's people, they're not sending their best [sic] they're bringing criminals, they're rapists....". "He's not a war hero". "I know more about ISIS than the generals". Asking Russia to hack US emails, then playing none the wiser when it happened and it's causing a firestorm. The facts literally don't matter.
People act like none of these things A. happened or B. mean nothing and it all gets brushed to the side. I guarantee if Obama said he went around forcing himself on women because he "couldn't help himself" and that he grabbed them by the pussy, there would be massive outrage. But when Trump does that or basically anything else, it's nothing.
