Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been created over at least the last 15 years.
Since 9/11, the American population has been subjected to an endless assault on their sense of reason and humanity, and the extent to which they value, or even understand, their own freedoms and civil liberties. The continuous fear-mongering of the government, which no security measures have ever eased, has led large segments of the public to feel disillusioned with the very concepts upon which the republic was founded, and made them open to radically un-American policy proposals; even to Fascism itself.
The types of things Trump says would only be heard on far-Right talk radio stations 20 years ago, and no political candidate could have been taken seriously who took such positions. That is how the lie of the War on Terrorism has changed American society. Trump is a logical eventuality in a system which maintains itself by promoting simplification, divisiveness, and paranoia.
A government cannot keep its people in a state of fear without eventually looking like it is incapable of protecting both their lives and their rights; and it cannot indefinitely talk about the impending threats to security without eventually taking conclusive action against those perceived threats. When you are constantly pumping into people’s brains that Muslims are dangerous, and that immigrants are draining the economy, and that non-whites are genetically inclined to criminal behavior; all of that is inevitably going to express itself in support for someone who treats the propaganda like it is literally true, and bases his policies on this premise; promising drastic, decisive action.
Technically, Trump should be running as an Independent candidate, not as a Republican. The Republican establishment never wanted him, and does not trust him. But by running as a Republican, he has brought radical Right-wing politics into the mainstream.
If Trump wins, his radical far-Right position will become the new “moderate”, and people even more belligerently bigoted will emerge as the new “Right”. This is like what Ariel Sharon did when he created the Kadima party in Israel. He took his extreme hawkish position and re-branded it as “centrist”, thus allowing Likud to become even more extreme. He redefined the far-Right as moderate, which brought even the radical Rightist fringe into the mainstream.