Do you think it’s primarily the immigration issue and the “establishment” aversion to doing anything about it,
or more generally an anti-establishment, anti-PC sentiment?
I think there is a strong undercurrent of anti-establishment sentiment in the United States; it’s shown by the very high negatives in polling about just about every public institution. Everyone has a sense that “things are not right.” We all know there are a number of things wrong. The political conundrum is that identifying the problems and proposing a solution on most of those issues tends to divide Americans.
But immigration is fundamentally different. It’s the lightning rod, the one visceral push-button issue that unifies Americans, and they all say “That’s it!” At least to themselves, just not in public. On this issue, the vast majority of Americans sense their government has betrayed them and sold them out.
Trump did some very good focus poling to discover this, and he’s tapped into it.