Cary, aren't voters allowed to "vote their hate", or dislike of personality, style, and/or (to me, most importantly), policies?
I was joking that a vote for Biden t-shirt should have had his picture with the caption: Vote For Me Because I'm NOT Trump!
This was definitely an anti-Trump movement by Democrats. Biden was just an "okay", moderate Democratic candidate with the best chance to possibly win a close race in the battleground States. The Democrats put a LOT of effort into convincing registered Democrats to vote nationwide, despite Biden being a relatively unappealing candidate. And, Party loyalty was high in both major Parties. For that reason, there was a huge turnout in terms of number of votes cast.
Since there are about 7 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, and the independent voters were about half leaning towards one Party or the other, I correctly predicted way back, that Trump would lose the national Popular Vote by 6+ million votes on that basis alone.
As you say, there was no Blue Wave, but there WAS a not-Trump-again wave. And, there was an attractive Libertarian Party candidate. Those account for the relatively close Biden victories in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
About two-thirds of the votes for the Libertarian were votes that would have gone to Trump if she hadn't been on the ballots, and that alone would have enabled him to win the Electoral College.
You may recall that Ralph Nader was blamed for taking Democratic votes away from Al Gore in the EXTREMELY close and Election-deciding race in Florida in 2000; and, the strong Green Party candidate Jill Stein was blamed for taking away badly needed votes from Hillary in 2016. So, "spoilers", as third-party candidates are often described, are nothing new.
Since nearly the entire focus this Election was on the Presidency, there was much less Democratic concentration on the House and Senate races, and no spoilers there, which accounts for the wins for Republicans in that area. Many Democrats voted ONLY as part of the not-Trump movement, and didn't even bother to vote for their House and Senate candidates.
Bottom line, I see no need to blame our entire voting system, the same system that enabled Trump to become President in 2016, for his loss in 2020. It all makes perfect sense without that.
Btw, one issue he REALLY blew it on, was his perceived indifference towards the 200,000+ Covid-19 fatalities, and his cavalier attitude towards things as elementary as masking and social distancing. Those cut across party lines, and alienated a lot of independents who might have voted for him otherwise.
