You say that but keep ignoring when people give you evidence against your beliefs. 

Because not all of what you (and others) are claiming can be true.  Pathetic you can't see that.  

Ran a great campaign, well liked platform, excellent messaging...  lost on all levels of government...  how that sounds reasonable is just dumb.  

To me this would be like losing the super bowl by 30 points and claiming the losing team had no flaws.....  while also claiming the winning team was heavily flawed.  It is nonsensical.

So what was the platform that allowed the GOP to have their red wave.  Was the messaging the reason.  Let's think about this more.  The GOP pretty much led with the culture war because its really hard to pick any particular policy that they were promoting coming up to the elections during that time.  I heard one report that Trump was losing in the polls until the assassination attempt then he gained a lot of support from there.  Or did the GOP just take advantage of bad times and blame it on the current administration because that is how politics works.  During times of trouble, it really doesn't matter what causes the trouble, if you are President and in charge, you will get the Lionshare of the blame.  

Personally, the GOP just played a better hand.  Times of trouble people always want a change so that in itself is enough to gain some votes.  Would you say that same mentality is what got Biden in office.  The next step was the focus on culture war instead of policy.  Policy can have a direct correlation to results, but culture is something totally different which I would say the Dems did not have a direct defense against because the party is way to broad.

Genuinely and sincerely don't know.  That is what I'm trying to understand and have been for almost a year now.  The presidential election didn't shock me, but the senate and house shocked me.  There is something here that we don't understand, which is why the blanket "because dumb" is frustrating.  It isn't value add.  

If it wasn't for covid, I think trump wins in 2020.  Speculation but that is my gut.  

You keep claiming that certain social services are unpopular in the Midwest particularly and when shown evidence against it just ignore it and move on with your day. This is what I am referencing. 

Surveys, having done a bunch myself, depend on how the question is asked and how well the sample distribution represents population distribution.  Not something I would hang my hat on.  Plus gross over interpretation.  If 53% voted favorable, the means 47%, at best are neutral (e.g. not a selling point).  Last I checked 47% is a huge percentage.  Also I'm talking about feelings in middle America, not general America.  Middle America is where most swing states are.  

But fine. For the sake of argument.

1) great platform that the majority love

2) great job of talking to the people and cascading messages 

Yet lost on ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT.  LOST THE POPULAR VOTE.  DID NOT WIN A SINGLE SWING STATE.

Please explain how this is rational thinking.  And people got dumber from 2020 to 2024 is an asinine position.

I would love for someone to actually try to address the points above.  I've mentioned it many times and nothing but crickets.  Which tells me everything I need to know.  You all don't have an explanation and refuse to do any reasonable analysis because of herd mentality.

Edit

I'm not being entirely fair.  Machiavellian and Zorg have provided additional rationale, so credit to them.  

I can only go by the friend group I have and he majority of them believe that Trump was going to be better for the economy and their pockets.  I kept asking them why but could not get any real answer or policy they believe he would do that would bring about that result.  I guess you could say that Harris was considered part of Biden regime so Trump offered something different even if they could not pinpoint anything he actually was going to do.  This also comes down to the educated uneducated part again.  Even though the world was going through high inflation due to COVID, Americans either did not care or were just clueless that it was a global situation not local.  They did not care that the US was able to rebound much quicker than the rest of the world instead they only focused what was right in front of them as if looking through fog.

I saw many conversations on the subject at the time and wondered exactly why people believe it was some type of policy from Biden that the world was going through high inflation but that is politics.  The GOP framed it as a Biden issue and of course if you have no real education than its easy to make that group believe it just like Trump making the same group believe Tariffs are paid by the country its levied against instead of the companies within the nation that purchase the goods which then is transferred to the customer.  

A lot of that is fair.  I still think messaging is the biggest issue with liberals.  What they say and what people hear are very misaligned.

I do think a big hit to Biden was the border, the cover up of his mental decline and Harris being directly associated with all of it.  He was just a bad pick out of the gates.  I think someone like Peter B would have won.  It is a real shame because trump shouldn't be president, especially with control with the senate, house and Supreme Court.  

I'll never understand, especially with the mental decline, why the DNC went Biden.  The nail in the coffin was the debates.  It was over at that moment.  Which, going off memory, trump was trying to avoid a debate.  Liberals pushed for it.  Again something I will never understand.

I don't believe stupid is why trump won.  The liberal strategy was God awful. 

This is why the culture war works so well.  Dems try to please everyone even the marginalize community but that isn't a problem for the GOP because the majority of the people they are targeting either do not care about marginalize communities or they feel that those communities are not important.

The messaging is just easier as we see with this AD.  Look how easy it is to make some simple ad about some pretty girl political, tag it as woke and liberal and now it's some national event because the messaging from the GOP is that all Dems are liberals when in fact most would be right in the middle.

Both Trump and Biden show mental decline, maybe Trump not as much but man he isn't to far from that same tree either.  Dems just do not play as dirty as they should because they could really have focused on Trump decline but really did not go for it.  Interesting that Gavin Newsom seem to be trying this tactic which should be interesting as times goes on and Trump decline becomes more prevalent.  Either way, Dems just suck at going low let's see if Newsom has success in that area.

Data collection can be hard, but that's no reason to substitute with vibes. 

Don't give a shit personally about your other arguments about democrats in general. I'm just telling you your "I think the Midwest doesn't like ____ because I lived there" is an intellectually lazy way to discuss something. And then when people try to share actual polling with you you ignore it and talk about how the democrats losing the popular vote just must mean you're right. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the point being made but you can't stop yourself from going into it again and again. Either way it's again not a good argument to what's being discussed. 

Out of curiosity: Can you maybe apply that rationale in the bolded and consider why polling is more likely accurate than your personal recollection from living there?