We fought the Civil War to stop this from happening. Man cannot govern himself alone, he has to be held accountable by his peers. To some degree this means that the federal government has to be able to lay down the law, even if it's not a populist sentiment. You aren't being punished for voting wrong, that's beyond any deterministic impact your vote had on the system.

> right now, non-Trump voters will suffer just the same amount as pro-Trump voters, leading to widespread (and justified) disillusionment

But your entire point in the preceding paragraph is that the suffering is an unjust byproduct of modern democracy. So, are individuals justified for their disillusionment, or simply butthurt over a working system that doesn't favor them?

The RNC and DNC both have a modern litany of sitting presidents that courted widespread suffering. We could bicker over who's worse, but the wheel has to run over somebody to keep rolling. I agree with Belter, not giving Americans Trump as a president would be a violation of causal consequences. It would be cleaner, safer, nicer, more profitable, less stressful and more productive to put someone else in his place, but it would also be wrong.