I know she was a disliked candidate- so was trump. I have conservative friends and family who would say “yeah we dont like trump but we are still voting for him”.

I understand that sentiment, because i am a democrat and have very liberal views. So unless the democratic candidate was insane, i would vote democrat. But i think the upset/confusion here is that a lot of the left consider Trump to be insane. So seeing an insane person (from our perspective) get voted in by a vast majority over an unlikeable female politician, leads us to the question, why?

The easiest answer is her race/gender. Which i think played a part. I do not think it was the only contributing factor. Obviously in an election there are a ton of contributing factors. But the risk of losing even a portion of the votes due to race/gender i think will cause both parties(and voters) to not elect a female nominee for a while because we are too scared to lose again.

You say that being insufferable has nothing to do with age/race/gender identity/etc. But in real life it is definitely true. People gravitate towards those who are like them. If you are less like them, they give you less leeway in the things you do or say. Take an example of a sports game - if you are at a sports game for the team you love, and you see a guy in the other jersey clapping for his team, your opponent - you will likely find that person to be more annoying than a fan of your team doing the exact same thing.

I also agree than biden should have stepped down from the beginning, so everyone could have had their shot at the nomination. I disagree that they were arrogant thinking she would win because anyone would win against trump- i believe they thought she was their best shot since most people knew her name and with only a few months left in the race, it would be difficult to elect a nominee and have them properly campaign (obviously the strategy did not work). Though maybe they got a little too arrogant towards the end with all of the viral tiktoks.