Like many people who enjoy the entertainment that is politics, and especially the circus of the 2016 Republican primary, I have pondered the Trump phenomenon. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert in the field, who is? I come at this from the perspective of being related to a wingnut whom I've held in high intelectual regard for most of my life. My father actually was in negotiations to purchase the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on behalf of investors at the time The Donald acquired the property.
Here is why I believe he is doing so well at this point in the campaign. Like all the other candidates running, he never answers a question. More to the point, his answer is simply that he will be brilliant in handling the issue in question. When even conservative reporters have the temerity to question how he will be brilliant, he calls them gotcha questions and then mocks and demeans the questioner. In this manner, he is the logical extension of Republican rhetoric.
Please follow me, it will not be a long post.
Boiled down to its essence, Republican policy for years has been a nothing-burger. Government cannot solve the problem, so we are offering you less of what you are currently getting. In Republican dogma, less means more freedom. Meanwhile, the world gets worse for the working class. Donald Trump is also offering voters a nothing-burger, but his nothing-burger is "Fantastic! The Best! Most Delicious Nothing-Burger Evah!"
For years, everytime a Republican did not like a question he or she was asked, that pol demagogued against the question. They constantly bashed the "Liberal Media" no matter who was posing the questions. Newt Gingrish did this very well during the 2012 primaries. If you can't answer the question then it must have been an unfair question by the liberally biased media, even when that media turns out to be Fox News. After all, Conservative groups have considered it a Liberal appearance on television when a conservative supported what they considered a liberal point of view.
Look at how they twist themselves over Pope Francis. In Movement Conservatism, you are, as George W. Bush said, "With us or against us." That applies to everything. The Pope is a liberal because he wants to help the poor, he doesn't shame women who have had abortions (They're quick to point out that he doesn't condone them, but that's not good enough for them.). He doesn't rail against Homosexuals, either, "Who am I to judge?"
The Punditocracy also cannot understand how he can spew the vitriol he spews and not get hoisted on his own petard. He is playing to a crowd that hates that they have had to over their own racism in code. They believe that black people are lazy takers on welfare and food stamps or outright murderers rapists and criminals and the PC police have been preventing us from solving the problems because they can't say what it is, but Trump does.
They've been dying to call a "spade a spade, a spic a spic," and any other racially vile epithet you care to think about. They are proud that The Donald is the only one telling it like it is.
In 2008, John McCain ran an ad about building "the damned fence." It's built. Immigration is net zero. A true Republican leader would say so. Instead, we got Mitt Romney saying self-deport in 2012. Now, trump proposes building a WALL. John Oliver pointed out that one guy with explosives in his shoe forced us all to remove our shoes before getting on a plane, but 30,000 gun deaths a year don't mean a thing.