An alternate fact, too much free trade, offering immigrants unwanted jobs, personal bigotry, climate change skepticism, anti-cerebral, tolerance of the far right, warmongering, all o these may have contributed to Trump's dramatic rise to power, but I doubt it. 9/11 may also have had something to do with it, and you can hardly blame that on Bush. His popularity soared after the way he dealt with it. Check out Obama and Clinton for the root causes of the new Republicanism, appropriately called  Trumpery.