[dragonwriter]

> If this election has taught us anything, it is that if you continually scream at and belittle adults, they will eventually ignore you.

I thought it was, "if you nominate a candidate against whom a successfull multidecade smear campaign has been run, turnout among the people that are otherwise likely to vote for your party will be dangerously depressed."

Trump was supported by a smaller share of the voting public than the losing candidate in the last Presidential election (about equal to the 2008 loser, and smaller than the losers in 2000 and 2004, as well) -- with less of the eligible population voting at all than in 2012.

> Why was the birther and the racial element so prominent during the Obama years?

The racial element has been a factor in pretty much every US election ever; heck, the stark divisions over racial policy underlies some of the most notorious provisions of the original constitution. It's the single most consistent and enduring political divide in the US. It wold only be noteworthy if it hadn't bee particularly prominent with a black candidate or incumbent in the Presidency.