Obama certainly made some mistakes, but if you can't see how the right pushed division at every single opportunity you really haven't been paying attention.  They couldn't handle that he had won and did everything they could do to delegitimize him and to convince people that he was at fault.  What it comes down to, and it took me a long time to realize this, but ultimately it came down to Obama being a black guy.  Oh, the right in general couched their racism in dog whistles, but in the end they did everything they could do to divide this county. Their media machine, embodied in talk radio and the internet kept up a constant drumbeat of propaganda that talked about how Obama isn't a "Real American" or how he is a secret Muslim, or whatever crazy theory they could push.