… You can look at the populist insurgency spearheaded by Donald Trump as either a corrective or a threat to mainstream Republican orthodoxy.
On the threat side, Trump has exploited a racist and authoritarian vein in American politics.
On the corrective side, Trump has tapped into and exploited the inadequacy of the responses coming from both major parties to voters who feel that they are “strangers in their own country.”
There are, however, major hurdles for anyone determined to capitalize on the Trump campaign in order to force an internal realignment of the Republican Party. CONT.
Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times