What is Trump

Having core beliefs is detrimental to a winning strategy in Republican presidential politics. That helps make Trump the strongest candidate - willing to say anything, to employ any tactics to win. He has all the necessary qualities - truly an outsider, with a simple solution to every problem. His experience with elimination politics as the judge on The Apprentice taught him everything he needs to know to win the nomination. Donald is the ultimate Celebrity Apprentice, preparing to be a celebrity apprentice president.
The success of  a Trump could not happen in the Democratic party where debates focus on issues, not personalities. Trump's popularity among the Republican base combined with his ambiguous political leanings exposes the reality that the Republican Party is now defined primarily as a loose coalition that is the Notthedemocrat Party.  If the existing alignment of the coalitions that make up the two party system was heading toward collapse, it would look like it does now. The one-upsmanship of the standoff in the Senate on the Scalia succession and failure to hold hearings on the President's budget proposal mean that all three branches are now in crisis over political party differences, which will only worsen.  Our current situation resembles the Civil War era fragmentation and realignment of the parties more than it looks like any other time in history. A party realignment is necessary for a functioning government to be restored, but the transition may be painful. We could see 3 parties or even 4 parties forming before we get back to an equilibrium of two major parties.