Notwithstanding international and domestic criticism, and irrespective of his crude and rude style, Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican nomination has gained momentum, in part, due to his proposal for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration, until the introduction of an effective counter-terrorist vetting process. According to a December 10, 2015 Rasmussen poll, his proposal is favored by a majority of GOP voters (66%:24%) and a plurality of all voters (46%:40%).
Trump is leveraging, not shaping, the current US state of mind – and especially that of Republican voters – which reflects frustration with the federal, state and local political and non-political establishment/elites, as well as with political-correctness in the areas of the economy, crime, immigration, foreign policy, the war on Islamic terrorism, and homeland security.
Trump benefits from the drastic erosion in the stature of conventional wisdom/orthodoxy, and, therefore in the stature of conventional/orthodox candidacy.
Trump is aware of the yearning to resurrect the ethos of the American Dream, which featured the USA – until the 2007-2009 Great Recession – as the only moral, economic and military super-power. He attempts to echo the eagerness to stop the slippery slope of the American state of mind from boundless optimism to pessimism, from patriotism to skepticism, from faith and confidence in American exceptionalism to national and personal uncertainty and anxiety, from expected upward mobility to feared downward mobility.