Any one of the professional Republican Candidates could have stolen his positions in 2016 and ran away with the nomination.
They refused. They didn't care what the Republican voters wanted.
I'm not so sure. We were getting off 8 years of Obumma, and Hillary was a very unlikable continuation as Obumma's secretary of state/governor/former first lady.
Trump was a very belligerent, volatile, energetic and populist alternative.
There were a lot of good republicans in the race, problem was that republicans somehow always have the personality of a stick in the mud! They never have any emotional appeal.
Democrats have emotional appeal, just that their ideas and plans are whacked. Worse, both they and republicans all act like this is business as usual and everything is normal and OK, all we need is to /tweak/ things a little bit. You know, attack a few drug costs to make them more affordable, more childcare access for working mothers, blah, blah, blah.
Then here came Donald Trump, finally, someone saying the things LOUDLY that we all feel inside! That this country is WAY off track, that things are WAY wrong, and that Americans are getting the shaft. If Trump is right then all the rest of them are WRONG, and we already know that things have been WRONG for a very long time.
So, sound fiscal policy out the door, solid foreign policy out the door, Trump is the non-politician saying all the things we all know to be true that none of the other bumpkins are willing to admit!
Thus we have MAGA. Washington DC created Trump because all the rest of them just SUCK so bad.