Party candidate in the 90s. Not a chance in hell. That would not have satisfied his need to stick it to the establishment, which had screwed him over his whole life (in his mind). Now, at this point, I think he would have if he’d lost the primary by some miracle. But he’d have crashed and burned in the ‘90s, because at that euphoric moment in our history, his grievance soaked, 0 sum nationalism would not have found a big enough audience.

He tapped into a strain of insecurity many feel in our now very rapidly changing world, with grievance fodder circulating all over social media 24/7. It’s no coincidence that 2016 also saw a significant challenge from former fringer Bernie Sanders (who might have pulled a trump without moderating filters like superdelegates in the dem primary - the numbers themselves don’t add up to that, but it’s hard to know how momentum might have swung. How many 2015 never trumpers are now among his dedicated followers?).

Our history has seen one of the major parties slip out of the top 2 before. This is the kind of environment where that could happen. But it has to be bottom up, not top down.