That is a more damning indictment of the American electorate than anything. They fell for the con man. Twice.
It isn't a damning indictment of the American electorate, it is a damning indictment of the system.
For literally decades BOTH parties conspired against the American People on the immigration issue. The American People STRONGLY support border control and AT LEAST some screening and AT LEAST some limits on immigration. The donors to BOTH parties just want more bodies.
At the beginning of the 2016 election there were something like 21 candidates (IIRC) with 16 R's and 4 D's. The exact number isn't important, the point is that all but one were in bed with the donors against the American People. The ONE exception won the election.
Trump ended up building almost zero wall and generally not living up to his promises but he DID at least restrict illegal immigration as the American People wanted, not enough to get himself reelected.
What did the system do?
The system kicked, screamed, dragged it's feet, and generally opposed every effort to actually enforce the law then nominated a dementia patient and coalesced around their empty suit placeholder for the system and pulled off a win with a LOT of help from (among other things):
- The Wuhan Flu
- The entire legacy media
- The Rx company that had a successful vaccine trial BEFORE the 2020 election but buried the news
- Absentee voting
So they managed to elect their empty suit placeholder.
Then four years later they comically renominated the dementia patient but this time it was a bridge too far. When he showed up for the debate it became obvious to the entire world the he needed to be in a home not the White House so they pushed him out and replaced him with a candidate who won literally zero delegates in the Democratic primaries in 2020. That isn't an ideological issue, it was a DEMOCRATIC Primary among Democratic voters. It was simply a likability issue. She was an atrocious candidate.
So the voters were presented with a choice between the incredibly unlikable Kamala whose major activity in the preceding four years had been to be placed in charge of the border by the dementia patient and preside over the largest increase in immivasion in American history or a guy who at least said he was on the side of the American people.
Trump isn't the disease he is a symptom. If we had two parties (or for that matter even one) that were actually working on behalf of the American People Trump would have been easily defeated. We don't and he wasn't.