Stein did play a spoiler role. A big one.
She may have school smarts and be charismatic and sociopathic but she is mathematically uncommonly dense.
Agree, I think this is all emotion-driven.
Stein and most others who support this effort are innumerate (equivalent to "illiterate," but with respect to numbers instead of words).
They thought they could engineer an AlGore-style cliffhanger.
They thought they could tie the country in knots and keep the media's focus for weeks, using the AlGore/AlFranken model of "keep counting and re-counting the votes until you win."
Then they hoped to apply their epithet for George W. Bush, "selected ... not elected," to Trump for the next 4 years.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that Trump's margin of victory in WI, MI and PA was practically insurmountable.*
*As a footnote, I like to remind people that GWBush's lead in FL in the 2000 election SHOULD have been about 11,000 - 15,000 votes higher than it was. This is because the networks CALLED THE ELECTION FOR GORE BEFORE POLLS IN THE FL PANHANDLE HAD CLOSED. Even Bob Beckel, a Democrat pollster, estimated that about 11,000 likely Bush voters in the panhandle went home on election night without voting, after hearing the "news" that Gore had "won Florida."