The problem is that he didn’t present this as a candidate. It was hard to say that he had any principles at all, except that he felt he should be president. He was ill-served by whoever was in charge of this. More people would have voted for him if they actually had known all this.
But it really doesn’t matter. I and many others who were dubious voted for him, he’s the incoming President, and his appointments have been excellent so far! That’s all we need. And just by being off the wall, he may be able to carry off some things that a more polite candidate couldn’t have done.
I first read about Trump's ideas on what needed to be done to fix this country in his book, "Time To Get Tough - Making America #1 Again", published in 2011.
During the campaign, he published his plans on his web site and gave multiple speeches spelling it all out.
The web site publications and the speeches pretty much mirrored what he was saying in 2011 and even as far back as the 80's with updates for current issues.
He has always been staunchly patriotic and always believed in putting America first.
So my point is, anyone who is surprised by what is happening didn't bother to check out the information available including information many of us presented right here on FR.