>At the risk of veering off topic, would you mind explaining what this meant for you?
Well first of all you need to understand I will never vote for Hillary Clinton so I needed to rationalize voting for the Republican candidate.
Secondly it seemed Trump was addressing concerns people actually cared about. Money, security, and the bullshit fed to them by politicians in that order. Up until the Curiel scandal you could have argued the statements made by Trump were not racist. This actually mattered to me since one of the things I love about America is that anybody of any ethnicity could emigrate here and call themselves American. Also some of his positions seemed somewhat rational when you make them somewhat less extreme. For example, some sort of barrier or technology that assisted border patrol in their mandate could significantly curb the problem of illegal immigrants coming into the country and also curb the amount of drugs coming into the country. I also think there are certain countries in the middle east that terrorists almost always originate from, so while I think a complete Muslim ban is unnecessary and unenforceable I don't think we should be accepting anybody from war torn nations with signs of extremism.
Him being against the Trans Pacific Partnership and H1B visas and also being for lowering the corporate tax rate (three things which would affect my family and I significantly). He got my vote over Hillary.
(also Hillary's anti gun stances are another negative for her)
His "almost reasonable" positions led me to take him as my candidate of choice after everybody else I wanted was eliminated. I also believed his "almost reasonable" positions could resonate with voters if he did not make them more extreme. After Curiel he has been doubling down on his extremist rhetoric rather than toning it down which has removed any possibility of me voting for him.
Also it's interesting to note that until Curiel, Trump hadn't made any significant gaffs. Since then he has only made gaffs such as patting himself on the back like a buffoon after the Orlando massacre and he only doubles down. It just serves to make him seem unhinged and not capable of managing a mcdonalds let alone a country.
