A lighter form of punishment — termination — was also rare. “After the crisis, nobody on Wall Street lost their job in a Trump way — ‘You’re fired!’” said Dennis Kelleher, president at Better Markets, a nonpartisan organization that promotes the public’s interest in financial markets. “In addition, there has been this bipartisan interest in understating the deep economic damage from the financial crash. If you don’t have a compelling message that resonates with people in economic pain then you’re going to pay an electoral price.”

Consider one small measure of that pain. In May, the Federal Reserve published the “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households,” its third in an annual series.

While the Fed concluded that more Americans than in previous studies were comfortable or “O.K.” with their financial positions, the researchers made a disturbing finding. If faced with emergency expenses of $400, almost half of the 5,600 respondents said they either would not be able to cover the costs or they would have to sell something or borrow to do so.

Another troubling statistic from the study: 22 percent of workers in the survey said they were holding down two or more jobs.

“It’s important to identify the reasons why so many families face continued financial struggles and to find ways to help them overcome them,” said Lael Brainard, a Federal Reserve governor, at the time the study was published.

I’d call that an understatement.

Marcus Stanley, policy director at the nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform, agreed that outrage over the accountability gap played a role in the election’s outcome.

The degree to which these voters favored Mr. Trump is something of a paradox, given his persona of the wealthy real estate mogul. Jailing bankers wasn’t one of his campaign’s main themes.