Trump knew what he was saying. Over years he had honed his message to get appeal from sources Trump understood. The people who felt resentment. This was actually a new base for the Republican party.

One of his advisors was a student of right-wing radio. That advisor listened to a lot of right-wing talk radio. His name was Sam Nunberg. He had studied right wing talk radio. He had heard Mark Levine many times. Nunberg spent thousands of hours listening to right-wing talk radio and made copious notes. He tracked what was being said. He tracked the battle lines between the parties and within the parties.

As Nunberg said,

“So, we have people escaping failed cultures, escaping failed economic systems, and escaping failed governments, coming into this country and bringing all three of those with them. And our country encourages them. Unbridled wave after wave of immigration legal and illegal. It’s taking the country down.”

Of course, immigrants are one of the universal scapegoats of authoritarianism or fascism.  There is no more common or reliable object of resentment than the immigrant—the classic other. And they can be blamed for nearly every ill. All  authoritarians and fascists hate immigrants and want them to go away. The sooner the better.

Nunberg spent thousands of hours analyzing American conservative talk radio and analyzing them, and his reports went straight to Donald Trump.

Nunberg told Trump he was there to help him market himself.

Nunberg said that immigration had made Trump a martyr to the anti-immigration cause. Nunberg had been listening to guys like Glenn Beck. Beck said, long before Trump, “You want to solve the problem of immigration? You know it and I know it. You put up a giant fence. You stop the people who are coming in here because they are criminals, or they want to do us harm.” That became an integral part of Donald Trump’s playbook. That is what he said at his first speech where he announced he was running for the presidency in 2016 at Trump tower on the escalator.  That was what Steve Bannon loved about Trump. That speech energized Bannon; it energized the nation. American was all twisted about immigration. And Trump had a simple solution that everyone could understand. Building a big beautiful fence that will keep those immigrants out. And it all came from Glenn Beck.

Here is what Trump said at a rally in Iowa 2015 long before he declared he was running: “We have to build a fence. And it’s gotta be a beauty. Who can build better than Trump? I build. That’s what I do.”

Anti-immigration is probably the most important plank in Donald Trump’s platform. That is what he was all about. Of the Americans I know who support Trump it is a very important issue. And as Nunberg promised, the crowd loved it. And Trump loved nothing more than the roar of the crowd. He constantly dived in on this winning message.

Nunberg encouraged him to build a wall and to tell the people Mexico would pay for it.  That was better than a fence. And that is what Trump did. 4 months later he said,

I will build a great wall, and no one builds better than Trump. Believe me. And I will build them very expensively. I will build a great, great wall on our Mexican border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.

And of course, as we all know, he repeated this message over and over again. And also, of course, his supporters at every rally chanted, “Build that wall. Build that wall.” And they chanted it over and over again. That together with “Lock her up.” Messages the crowds, fueled by resentment and fear, loved ecstatically.

Most of us have forgotten by now, but this was way beyond the Republican national policy. It became Republican policy but only after Trump secured the 2016 Republican nomination for the presidency. Most of the Republicans supported amnesty or at least a path toward citizenship. No one else advocated for a wall and as a result Donald Trump “stole” the Republican nomination. This simple solution demonstrated to Republicans who among the presidential campaigners had the harshest, heaviest platform against immigration and for law and order. Those were the issues the Republican voters were enthralled with. Support for Trump grew quickly and enormously.

And the right wing flourished under Trump. But America not so much.