These are all positions Trump has publicly taken in the GOP primary:
1) He thinks the rich should pay more in taxes.
2) Wants to erect massive barriers to free trade (including placing a 45% tax on ever single item large or small that China exports to the US).
3) Wants to restrict American capital access to overseas labor markets and force American companies to on-shore their manufacturing.
Those are all populist/leftist positions. That's straight out of an anti-NAFTA, anti-WTO leftie wishlist. Bernie Sanders has said these things.
It's besides the point that for any given thing he's said, he's said the opposite only days before. The GOP primary has clearly demonstrated that that fact doesn't actually matter for a significant number of voters.
You already saw in Trump's victory speech on Super Tuesday his softening of tone and pivoting towards the center. Watch as this drags on as he continues that pivot and goes after angry and disgruntled independents and blue dog dems in the rust belt and elsewhere. He's been telling pissed off people whatever the fuck they want to hear for months now, just tweaking it for the particular group of angries he happens to be talking to that day. He'll be tweaking for the blue collar left next.
Mark my words, there is a strong possibility that there will be a lot of people on the Left horrified at at how many of their own perceived voters he peels off.
A lot of us, including me, have been pretty glib and mocking of someone that really deserves more serious consideration than we've given him. We imagine ourselves as a group, as a sort of saintly firewall. I think we could find that we've been egotistical and condescending to the point of peril if we don't watch it.
The margins in MI, WI, and PA look to be about a point or less, and they made all the difference.
I'm profoundly disappointed, saddened, and more then a little bit worried. Surprised is (sadly) a bit of a stretch. I've talked with a LOT of Trump supporters over the past few months in MI and I wasn't trying to find any of them. Just kept "running into" people who just kept "bringing up" Trump. The one common theme was a visceral belief that the people in power in both parties in government ididn't give two shits about them. I can't say they are wrong. I think they chose the worst solution imaginable for their frustration. The devil you don't...
He's a Molotov cocktail. I have an uncle that is was a Bernie supporter that gleefully voted for Trump.
It doesn't matter that the plight of the white working class might have been lessened if the GOP worked with Obama on fiscal policy. For so many, this was not a vote for the GOP, but a vote against the establishment in general.