Set aside for the moment the 20,000-plus lies. Set aside the lamentable failures of leadership to address the nation’s most pressing problems, including the bumbling mismanagement of the worst health crisis since 1918 and the resulting staggering blow to our economy. Ignore for the moment the blatant abuse of our justice system, the affronts to the rule of law, and the stench of corruption that has hovered over this administration from the beginning. Disregard the clumsy failures of diplomacy and the damage to our international influence and reputation. Set aside the destructive demagoguery and all the nastiness.

What you need to know about Donald Trump’s presidency in a nutshell is summed up in his behavior leading to and following Nov. 3. In our worst nightmares, we never imagined we would see an American president not only fail to concede a clear loss but brazenly and repeatedly attempt to undermine confidence in the legitimacy of a fair democratic election. Since his loss became unmistakably certain, Trump has continued shamelessly to allege voter fraud and Democratic conspiracy. Attempting to overturn the outcome and with no evidence whatsoever, he has filed far too many frivolous lawsuits, all of which, with one minor partial exception, have been thrown out. Now, desperate to cling to power, he is attempting to bully Republican election officials, legislatures and governors in key battleground states to decertify vote tallies and appoint electors who will do his bidding.

These efforts to reverse the legitimate outcome will inevitably fail; Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 — and Trump must know this (or maybe he is, in fact, as pathologically delusional as he seems — and doesn’t know it). Still he persists.

Meanwhile, there is serious fallout.

— By selfishly refusing to cooperate with Biden in a peaceful transfer of power (including withholding transition funds for three weeks like a third world dictator), he is compromising national security and public health in a time of extraordinary crisis.

— Like a spoiled child, petulant and vindictive, he seems determined to handicap the incoming administration in any way he can, even beyond the transition period. His attempts to persuade his base that the new administration will not be legitimate are reprehensible and unpatriotic in the extreme.

— With Republicans in Congress too terrified of him to condemn his despicable post-election antics, he is adding to his ongoing debasement of the entire Republican Party.

In short, these few weeks have shown that Trump leaves the White House just as he began — a self-absorbed, power hungry, petty, vituperative man — utterly unfit for the office he has held. To the very end, his principle tools remain what they have been — fomenting distrust in responsible government, intimidating any who oppose him, cultivating division, appealing to prejudice and fear.

Fear for himself probably motivates him strongly just now, for once he leaves office he will likely face criminal charges in the state of New York, where no federal pardon will be available to him.

Given all this, I am much surprised that Biden’s victory wasn’t a landslide. Forty seven percent, nearly half, of those who cast ballots voted to retain this incumbent who has done more to undermine our democratic institutions and our confidence in the rule of law than any president in memory. Astoundingly, two-thirds of Idaho voters would have awarded him another four years to continue the wreckage. I worry about what his relatively strong showing portends.

What caused seventy three million people to mark a ballot for this man? It’s a provocative question.

Of course, not all of the Trump voters did so for the same reasons. Here are some of his constituencies and their possible motives (I’m painting with a broad brush, and you’ll observe that the groups overlap somewhat):

— The Trump rally goers, hardcore members of his personality cult who believe every word he utters, who accept unquestioningly any despicable thing he does. They love to get down in the political gutter with him, chanting “lock her up,” while he smirks with self-satisfaction.

— Many evangelicals, social conservatives whose notion of religious freedom is to impose legally their beliefs on everyone. Trump has cynically pandered to them.

— Single-issue voters, for example extreme advocates for anti-abortion, unrestricted gun rights, etcetera. Trump has no firm convictions on anything beyond expedient self-interest, but with finger to the wind he hypocritically woos these tunnel-visioned citizens.

— White supremacists, racists and xenophobes, who in Trump have found the politician of their dreams.

— The financially selfish, many of whom thrive in a deregulated economy and who want an even bigger piece of the pie. They see Trump’s personal unprincipled exploitation of capitalism as a model to emulate.

— The conservative compromisers, who dislike much about Trump personally and disapprove of his modus operandi, but approve some of the policies he has promoted. The collateral damage to our national values he leaves in his wake they are willing to accept as a tradeoff.

— The die-hard party loyalists, whose daddies were Republican, as were their daddies before them — and that explains why they themselves are “not gonna change now, by God.” These voters tend to be minimally informed about issues; simply an “R” by a name on the ballot is enough.

— The anti-SOCIALISTS, for whom the very sound of the word SOCIALISM causes their brains to freeze up and start them demonizing any candidate on the left. They see Joe Biden as merely a front stooge, ready to wilt before the dastardly machinations of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They cannot see the obvious, that our president-elect is a moderate who might be able to find common cause with some Republican moderates (if any of that nearly extinct species remain who dare show themselves) and through compromise actually get some problem-solving done for the country.

So that’s why so many ignored the bigger picture, dismissed the present and looming dangers, and pulled the lever for Trump.

(In fairness, let it be said, the approach of many Democratic voters to the exercise of their franchise could be fitted into much the same type of categories.)

It worries me that so many in the American electorate conform to the profiles described above. Taking the most tolerant possible view of it, the stances they bring to the polls are too narrow, insufficiently informed, too often irrationally biased, too often dominated primarily by self — or tribal — interest. There are times when even party and policy ought to yield place to larger concerns, and just now that means the viability of American democracy and the protection of our institutions.

We can be grateful that Joe Biden won this election. It should have been by a tsunami — not a Blue tsunami but an American tsunami.

H. Wayne Schow, a native Idahoan, is a professor of English emeritus at Idaho State University. Schow lives in Pocatello.