Even us more neutral, ambivalent, or center oriented individuals can get caught off guard about what the general population believes. It's a common psychological distortion to assume that others know what you know.
I've come away feeling EXTREMELY jaded after having many conversations with all sorts of academic and intelligent people who are deeply deeply DEEPLY entrenched in the leftist narrative and lies.
It's MUCH worse than I think many of us have realized.
From my perspective I do feel like you are correct, and I think the lies and damn near brainwashing has essentially worked, and a lot more people were willing to vote for the left than we would have ever thought was possible.
I'm not saying that something significant, and possibly election turning, didn't happen, but I do think it's fair to say we should maybe calibrate our initial reading of just how effective the media's "slanting" worked this election.
Just look at the poll here coming into the election, most of us thought it was a lock for Trump. The riots, the white racism, it seemed so clear to all of us that nobody would stand for it. But the news and social media platforms were absolutely flawless in their whitewashing this time.
It'll make the untangling of law nightmarish to say the least, and the precedent this sets is horrific moving forward.
It may not even be something recoverable from this point.