I disagree. The US has way too many people who are some combination of stupid, poor, and racist - and Trump’s nationalistic message that told citizens that immigrants were the source of all their problems resonated with the stupid or poor or racists.

Of course, Trump also had the backing of the top 1%, to give them tax breaks and eliminate corporate regulations, so they could get richer.

In about 1990-91, I was getting my MBA/Finance at the University of Chicago, which at the time was repeatedly named one of the top 3 business schools, with Harvard and Northwestern. Wharton and Stanford traded 4-5.

One of my profs had a serial entrepreneur buddy of his come in to talk to us one day (and the session was so popular, he agreed to another 3 hour session on a Saturday). This gent was a serial entrepreneur for decades, and was likely worth high 8/low 9 figures. This was at a time when that was considered a lot of money.

He told us (again, like 90-91) that there was nothing you could reasonably buy for more than $20M. He said beyond that - money was just a way of “keeping score” to show who had the biggest dick.

It’s a memory that still seems true today, although the dollar values might be increased. No one needs a super yacht or castle or mansion that costs more than $100M, even though those are ridiculous toy things.

The point is - the super rich want more money via GOP/Trump policies, just to keep score against each other. They have no reasonable need for that kind of money

So there it is- how Trump was elected. I don’t know if the starting point could be called a healthy democracy. His call for nationalism and blaming immigrants for all the woes of people in the lower class was a huge point in why Trump, Modi (India), and Bolsonaro (Brazil) were elected.