You're probably right about that. The Trump coalition is in many ways like the old Reagan coalition (Reagan democrats, etc.). When Reagan left office, that coalition began to fall apart, and by 1992 it was mostly gone.
Regardless, I'm still backing Trump as the last, best chance to shake thinks up.
It's funny that you mention Reagan, because it's that comparison where I think Trump falls so short. Reagan had to sell himself, but what he was really selling were ideas. Those ideas were so powerful and so well articulated that he essentially created an entire generation of conservatives that might not otherwise have existed. If you go back and listen to many of his speeches on YouTube, they are still both powerful and topical. My point is that from Reagan we got "Reaganism", and I just don't see anything remotely comparable from Trump. He's got some ideas on a limited set of problems, primarily immigration, that I generally support. But beyond that...I just don't see much "there" there.
But I do understand why people support the guy. There is certainly a sense that our culture is getting away from us, and someone needs to try to stop that train. I just think that battle goes well beyond immigration, because too many of them, and the millennials, are here already. What is needed is a someone who can effectively communicate conservative principles to people who previously had not considered them, and I don't Trump really as a small government conservative at all.
Anyway, if he is the nominee, I hope he stops with the gaffes because he's got to beat Hillary.
“When Reagan left office, that coalition began to fall apart, and by 1992 it was mostly gone.”
The Reagan coalition began falling apart because George H.W. Bush not only walked away from it once he took the oath of office as president in 1989, he intentionally and rapidly purged his administration of Reagan conservatives during. Not unlike John Boehner dissing the Tea Party as soon as he took the speaker’s gavel the Tea Party made possible.