How Donald Trump Won the 2016 Presidential Election and Disarrayed the Political Establishment

The 2016 Presidential election will be remembered for ages not only for producing the biggest upset in the history of American politics, but also for the colorfulness of the primaries of both the Democratic and the Republican parties. When Bernie Sanders, the little-known Independent senator from small state Vermont boldly stated that he was a Democratic Socialist, and then began his race for the White House as a Democratic Party candidate, hardly anyone took him seriously. After all, he was up against the entire Democratic Party machinery and their favored candidate Hillary Clinton. Many people were astounded by the fact that he was taking on the greed and irresponsibility of corporate America and the top wealthy 1 percent. And he was running with very little money, no media support and no political organization to back him up. But he ended up running one of America’s most successful campaigns and came close to clinching the Democratic Party nomination after winning the votes of 13 million Democratic Party members in the primaries and caucuses, and after winning twenty-two states. Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee all right, but she counted enormously on Bernie Sander’s support against the Republican Party nominee. The Republican Party primaries turned out to be equally colorful if not more dramatic. With an array of 17 candidates, it was animated indeed. But the star of the process was Donald John Trump, a businessman and television personality with no political experience. He too ran against the media and the political establishment, promised to “Make America Great Again” and tapped the grievances of the population in a manner never seen before. He belittled those elites of his party who threw shots at him, reduced his rivals in the primaries to irrelevancy, and then clinched the nomination to the consternation of the Republican Party establishment, with many of the party’s elites openly pledging not to vote for him. Donald Trump cannot win! The media, pundits, pollsters and scholars told the