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Amid record turnout, Biden seemed sure to win the popular vote, possibly with an outright majority—a resounding statement by any standard. But many Democrats expected more. They believed that voters had soured on Trump and his party, that his mishandling of the pandemic and divisive style had alienated a wide swath of voters, that a new political era was about to be born and Trumpism banished to history's dustbin. Instead, they awoke to a different reality. "Democrats always argued, 'If more people voted, we would win,'" says GOP strategist Brad Todd, co-author of The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics. "Well, guess what? Everybody voted, and it didn't help the Democrats. There is a multiracial, working-class ethos that is animating the new Republican coalition."
在创纪录的投票人数中，拜登似乎肯定会赢得普选，可能会以绝对多数获胜——无论以何种标准衡量，这都是一个引人注目的声明。但是许多民主党人期望得更多。他们认为，选民们对特朗普和他的政党产生了反感，他对新冠和分裂形式的处理不当疏远了一大批选民，一个新的政治时代即将诞生，川普主义将被丢进历史的垃圾桶。但是相反，他们看到了一个不一样的现实。布拉德·托德是共和党战略家，同时也是《大反抗：重塑美国政治的民粹主义联盟的内幕》一书的合著者，他说：“民主党人总是说，‘如果有更多人投票，我们就会赢，’但是呢，你猜怎么着？大家都投票了，但并没有对民主党起到帮助，有一种多种族的、工人阶级的精神正在为新的共和党联盟注入活力。”
As the votes were tallied into the following day, the candidates' positions fell along predictable lines. The challenger encouraged the core exercise of democracy to continue, while the President tried to stop it. Biden's camp urged patience; Trump voiced unfounded suspicions about fraud and cast unwarranted doubt on still incoming returns. Despite widespread fears of chaos, the vote was mostly peaceful and devoid of major irregularities. The President's baseless declaration of victory was a sign that the test he has posed to American institutions isn't over yet.
随着第二天计票的进行，候选人的排名也在意料当中。挑战者鼓励民主的核心运作继续下去，而总统却试图叫停。拜登阵营敦促人们保持耐心，而特朗普则对欺诈行为和仍在增长的票数提出了毫无根据的怀疑。虽然人们普遍担心会出现混乱，但投票基本上是和平的，并没有出现重大违规行为。但是总统毫无根据的胜利宣言表明，他对美国机构构成的考验尚未结束。
Biden's campaign was predicated on a return to the pre-Trump political order, a "normal" that may always have been a figment of the collective imagination. If he emerges as the winner, his achievement—toppling an incumbent who manipulated the levers of government to try to gain an advantage, and made voter suppression a core campaign strategy— shouldn't be discounted. But even if he becomes the next President, it seems clear that he will be governing Trump's America: a nation unpersuaded by kumbaya calls for unity and compassion, determined instead to burrow ever deeper into its hermetic bubbles. Win or lose, Trump has engineered a lasting tectonic shift in the American political landscape, fomenting a level of anger, resentment and suspicion that will not be easy for his successor to surmount.
拜登的竞选是建立在回归特朗普上台前的政治秩序的基础之上的，这种“正常”可能永远都是集体想象的虚构。如果他赢了，那么他的成就——推翻了操纵政府杠杆试图获得优势并将镇压选民作为竞选的核心策略的现任总统——不应被低估。但是，即使他成为了下一任总统，似乎很明显他将治理的是特朗普领导下的美国：一个没有被主张团结和同情的圣歌所说服、反而决心在自己封闭的泡泡中越挖越深的国家。无论输赢，特朗普已经在美国政治格局中制造了持久的结构性转变，激起了一定程度的愤怒、怨恨和怀疑，继任者很难克服这些。
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