We're at the point where we have to admit that we can't use 2012 as a blueprint to explain what's going on here. Trump's campaign is something new, something we haven't seen before so no one has any idea what to make of it or even how to report on it. He's basically a kaiju, and everyone else in the race is Tokyo.
Trump's "campaign" isn't an inscrutable lighting-in-a-bottle stroke of genius. It's really easy to explain:
Old rich white male with a lot of money who doesn't need campaign funds and has no career in politics gets in front of a GOP megaphone and yells what uneducated people want to hear in the most boorish manner possible. People mistake his crass behavior as "anti-establishment" and ride the train, not focusing on his policy, lack of experience, dodgy business background, questionable career choices, corrupt dealings, etc., etc,., because he's the new political flavor-of-the-month, riding the wave during the GOP Primary Circus part of the cycle. The part of the cycle where none of this matters.
He's not a force of nature. He's appealing to the sect of conservative voters who were always going to vote Republican. He's taking the Tea Party mentality and cranking it up to 11. It's not a mentality that gets anybody into the White House.
Let's not pretend that his boneheaded approach to politics is any smarter simply because he has been sustaining his abhorrent bile for a longer amount of time than people thought possible. It's still just as ridiculous and unelectable as it was in his first day.
We need to stop the nominee of the week thing to talk about Trump.
Any single one of these gaffes and those guys sink instantly. Trump gets MORE popular.
It's still the exact same rhetoric simply enclosed in a different candy wrapper. The "nominee of the week" thing was nominees telling staunch Republicans what they wanted to hear. The "gaffes" were only part of the reason why they fizzled out.
And no, when people say "nominee of the week" they don't literally mean one week. Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum all lasted longer than 1 week and people said the same exact thing: they're new, they're different, they're not like Boring Old Romney because he's just a tired bland politician while these guys are new and edgy. Trump is "newer" and "edgier" and has the shock value going for him, but we're still retreading old ground. Just because he survived the first debate largely by Fox News handing him a victory with their idiotic attempts at throwing "curveballs" at him doesn't mean he's bucking any trends.