An alternative theory for Trump winning 2024

I've recently come to believe that the covid pandemic broke America in a profound way. This once in a century catastrophe put Americans face to face with what we live in denial of on a daily basis - our own mortality. The death of >1M of our countrymen was an event so horrendous it induced PTSD in a large part of the population.

In response to this trauma many sought psychic relief in the primitive defense mechanism of denial. In this state they repressed the painful memory and terror we experienced and memory holed the whole experience.

Thus, to many, it seemed comparatively that the time before the pandemic, the market crash, recovery, and subsequent inflation seemed to be better times both economically and in quality of life. So, despite the reality of our macroeconomic recovery and return to "normal" the denial they lived in would not allow them to see the whole picture but instead allowed just a peep hole view of the past.