Every informed person knew the way the electoral college worked before the election, including both major candidates and their parties. Anyone who didn't know had no excuse for not knowing, because it is basic civic knowledge and trivially easy to look up if one is curious. Claiming the popular vote "didn't count" is disingenuous and you know it.

A lot of democracy is just showing up. Even if your side loses, you may be building momentum that leads to a victory. Please keep showing up.

Unlike most previous systems of government, in a democracy, you get to try again.

Divine right was inconvertible by definition (after being defined by fiat). Throughout history, being on the losing side of a political conflict resulted in slavery or death. In a democracy, we have the privilege of trying again next year.

Change doesn't happen overnight. It happens when people refuse to give on their 99th loss and continue to apply all available pressure until the status quo finally cracks.

100% correct. There is a fallacy in Australia that you shouldn't "waste your vote" on the smaller parties, despite preferential voting.

It's important to keep the vote competitive, the alternative is people stay at home because they think there is no point voting.