In “Blowing the Biggest Political Story of the Last Fifty Years”, Neal Gabler makes a powerful case that Trump is a natural extension of Reagan:
It is hardly a surprise that the GOP establishment and their enablers in the media are acting as if Trump, the Republican frontrunner, is a break from the party’s supposedly genteel past. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, who was “shocked, shocked,” to find gambling in Rick’s establishment, the GOP solons profess to be “shocked, shocked” by Trump’s demagogic racism and nativism. Their protestations remind me of an old gambit of comedian Milton Berle. When the audience was applauding him, he would shush them demonstratively with one hand while encouraging them gently with the other.
He then states what should be obvious: Reagan’s dogwhistles were in plain sight back in the 1980s, and the media played right along.
I would go back further. One important chain goes like this:
Red scare->McCarthyism->Nixon and Checkers->Southern strategy->Roger Ailes->Fox News->Tea Party->Trump 2016
This isn’t the only chain, but the point is that Trump is riding a wave in a sea of political miscalculations with many enablers along the way (e.g. Eisenhower supporting Nixon after Checkers, Ford pardoning Nixon). These people probably meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Let’s hope we don’t ever find ourselves with our own Trump one day.