I think your observations are well made and your points well taken.  I think that antipathy for Clinton was a driving factor for many voters and, importantly, for many who chose not to vote. Many of these people did just as you say: they knowingly voted for someone who is a moral train wreck and worse.  However, I suspect many people voted for Trump believing that he didn't have a chance -- and that they wouldn't have done so if they believed that it was their vote that would make him president. They didn't believe much of what he said, but they didn't think it would matter because they didn't think he'd win.  But it did matter and it does; and we have a dangerously incompetent, emotionally unstable, ethically bankrupt president-elect about to succeed to the presidency.