In order - He played to stupid and got the highest recorded turnouts in primaries the GOP has seen in decades, including people who had long stopped being involved in the political system, voter suppression is nothing new and is a GOP favourite, so the level of effect is now mostly factored in, he lost the popular vote, this much is well known, but he won the electoral college system which is ultimately all that matters.
He did so by being stupid. He did so by handing the American electorate a way to say “fuck you” to the political class and he’ll do the exact same thing in 2020 because Trump will cast himself as the guy who offered Dreamers a path into America during this years shutdown in exchange for the wall but the Democrats didn’t bite. Every time that he does something that isn’t completely stupid and the Dems hold their noses up going “Never Trump” they’re simply making his platform stronger, because he feeds off of being the guy “on the outside”, that’s how he courts his voter base. He goes to them and says “Look, I made a really good offer, the bigliest offer, but these politicians, they wouldn’t take it!”
I get paid to figure out these types of things. I’m generally more right than wrong (like, significantly so, I don’t even need to be on the same continent to work out accurate results as long as I’m supplied with reasonable source information). I called Trump well before anyone else barring Michael Moore types who saw the writing on the wall, America still refuses to see that Trump is America’s Putin and still can’t bring itself to see that it still has major unresolved daddy issues.
Hillary is considering another swing because frankly she’s got little to lose, as does anyone who pitches up against Trump at 2020, the economy is on the rise, the Senate remains in GOP control so Trump is insulated from impeachment (and the more the Democrats go on about it in Congress, the more ammo they supply Trump for his campaign), if the Dems were in any way sensible they’d let Trump have his stupid wall and get the Dreamers sorted out so they had a positive message to sell the sensible side of America but their constant need to virtue signal gets in the way of good pragmatism. Ultimately that’s what is going to cost the Dems 2020, they’re still too busy playing to virtue to realise that politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the principle.
Automation is going to destroy the employment market as we know it in the West, in ways that should terrify people, it’s not here yet, but to give you an idea of the predictions, I’ve mooted that within 20 years, countries should prepare for 30% unemployment being the new “normal”.
Governments have to prepare for that kind of situation, and figure out a way to deal with 1 in 3 working-age people being out of work, and close to 1 in 2 people being economically inactive. The decades ahead are going to be unpleasant, and no, I don’t have the answers as to how we get out of the mess that’s going to be made as a result, that’s assuming climate change doesn’t become irreversible.