ABSTRACT
The 2016 presidential election upended the predictions of nearly every poll, pundit, and political scientist, almost all of whom believed Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump to become the nation's first female US president. A majority of voters viewed Clinton's opponent as temperamentally unfit to hold the nation's highest office, and the final pre-election polls showed her with a small, but seemingly durable and insurmountable, lead. Ronald Reagan's political history gave him cachet within the Republican establishment, as key Republicans endorsed his 1980 candidacy, and later unanimously put their support fully behind him once he captured the GOP nomination. Donald Trump, however, was held in near-universal contempt by the Republican establishment during the entire 2016 campaign. The contempt the Republican establishment had for Donald Trump was returned in kind. In an unprecedented attack on his adopted party, Trump trashed the presidencies of his Republican predecessors. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
