At least until this weekend, Donald Trump has kept defying all expectations. The political experts (myself included) were predicting that he would fizzle as a candidate soon and were viewing Trump 2016 a political fad, a fringe candidate who has captured the attention of reporters. …
What happened? Why has this lasted so long? Obviously part of the answer just has to do with Donald Trump. The experts underestimated his skills at the political game. He has proven to be savvier and more astute at electoral politics than most people thought. At some level, he has a message that resonates.
But a lot of his recent success has not been about Trump but about bigger trends shaping the election and the political process, all of which have given him room to mount a substantial effort. CONT.
Julian Zelizer (Princeton), CNN