I think you are dead wrong. Sure, there is a percentage that wants someone like Trump, but that is vanishingly small. The problem, rather, is ingrained tribalism. This is something both sides are guilty of, but which one side takes to an extreme. People were willing to overlook all of Trump's many faults in order to vote for someone with an 'R' behind their name.
I had hoped that this was the case, then I had the misfortune to talk to my brother-in-law, his family and his buddies. They are white and a mixture of government employees (mostly police and prison service), military and veterans, small business owners and workers in a variety of industries. AFAIK all are high school graduates and many have bachelor degrees (so they're not unemployed or uneducated). A lot of them have grown up in rural areas and they're all second amendment enthusiasts.
They, to a man and woman, think that Donald J Trump is absolutely splendid. A best he will do everything he has claimed he will do but at worst he will get many "good" things done (like Gorsuch's appointment) and in the process will tweak the noses of liberal, ivory tower types like me.
IMO this is not atypical for people like them - and in the middle of the country there are an awful lot of people like them. Good people with a fundamentally different set of priorities, standards and values to me.
After the election we have seen a lot of justification and many many excuses, but it's rarely based upon agreement with what Trump is actually doing. Even one of our most vehement Trump apologists - and a right wing nutjob himself - has admitted to only voting for Trump for the SC pick.
Which for many people would be reason enough. He has paved the way for a generation of Christian, right-wing SCOTUS decisions.
In the end, very few wants a slow drift away from democracy. Sure, they might pine for the never-was time of the flowery fiftees, but even then there was an expectation that democracy was a good thing, and that people were supposed to follow the rules of the game. Trump is throwing all that away, and then lying about it. Many of the Trump voters are simply blatantly stupid, at least when it comes to politics, but many more are simply ignorant, because they have had their brains filled with poison by right wing 'media' and politicians.
I disagree, the largest single homogeneous block of voters got the candidate they wanted. You could argue that they were misinformed or underinformed but to be honest for most voters in most elections this has been the case.
Look at the media from 100 or 150 years ago and even today's media is pretty balanced. I guess it's easier to live in an echo chamber these days but then again I doubt whether my Grandad had much of a political spectrum among the miners he worked with back in the 20's and 30's
What needs to happen is that Trump needs to be made an example of. He absolutely needs to be impeached, and then criminally prosecuted and thrown in jail should he be found guilty.
Step 1 in that would be to find something he's actually guilty of, as opposed to being suspected or accused of. It's not immediately apparent what that could be. It seems than members of his campaign and his administration may have had improper contact with, or indeed colluded with the Russians but that has not been proven and it's not clear how dirty Trump's hands are.
He could also be guilty of obstruction of justice but it seems that the actions he took were entirely legal AFAIK although the motivations may be suspect.
People who voted for him need a metaphorical slap on the head in order to wake the **** up and look at what consequences catastrophic choices like voting for an authoritarian kleptocrat can have.
The U.S. is a democracy and I disagree with you. I think a large proportion of Trump voters actually wanted Trump (I have changed my mind on that, at the time I thought it was maybe 50/50 with party loyalty contributing equally - now I suspect it's closer to 80/20). I know it seems incomprehensible but that's the thing - groups of voters with completely different values to ourselves often appear incomprehensible.
As far as consequences go - my brother in law couldn't be happier. He feels he has a President who listens to, and understands, people like him.
This is why I say 2018 is so important. Right wing media is gathering strength, with local news being taken over more and more. Meanwhile, Trump's war on the real media is gathering momentum, and GOP congress critters are gerrymandering their states to lock them up for generations, while implementing restrictions on the minority vote. At the top of the judiciary, the Supreme Court is liable to be stacked with Trump men.
Yes, I agree with most, if not all of that, that's how the U.S. system has worked for a couple of centuries. Sometimes it's a little better than others but there's always been shadiness and compared to the 1960's, it's OK.
That doesn't mean anyone should be complacent or that abuses like gerrymandering and/or voter suppression should go unchallenged but neither is it the end of democracy in the U.S., they'll muddle through as they always have.
This is a bleak outlook to have, but it's what I genuinely feel is at stake. It's 2018 to restore democracy, or bust.
I think that's a little hyperbolic. The Democratic Party OTOH does need to shake itself out of its torpor, come up with some policies and candidates who will genuinely excite the electorate rather than relying on simply not being Trump or the GOP.
