| Summary/Abstract |
The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November 2016 has fueled heated debate in American society. Many people believe that Trumps victory was an accident and a tragic mistake, but just as many insist that the election of the New York billionaire had to happen. In fact, both are right and wrong at the same time. Social trends that had slowly developed in the U.S. made "the Trump phenomenon" possible, but those trends did not necessarily mean that it had to happen in the way that it did. In order to understand this phenomenon and its causes better, let us look at Trump's victory in a broader historical context using statistics starting from 1952, which cover almost three generations. Such an approach should help us correct, or maybe even reconsider, the "feelings" many people think are quite obvious.
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