> Did Trump articulate how he would change the US though
He didn't have to. The amount of vitriol directed at him and his supporters by almost every journalist, academic, intellectual, and establishment politician told the voters everything they needed to know.
This election came down to moral outrage. The duplicity and flat out dishonesty of the media, the simmering anger at Obama's broken promises about health care ("If you like your plan, you can keepy it") and the serious and deep personal flaws of Hillary Clinton was just too much to overcome.
One thing that shouldn't be overlooked either is that while some view Trump's platform as racist, his supporters see him as the exact opposite. He's hard on illegal immigration but otherwise has no particular bias towards Mexicans on a personal level. In fact he has sympathized with them on why so many of them are fleeing for their lives to the USA, something nobody is willing to talk about.
Seriously? He literally accused a judge of prejudice simply because of his Mexican heritage. No supporting evidence. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was born here. There is only one word for that: racism.
Let's look at the data: about 30% of latinos voted for him. This surprised me and I bet it surprised Clinton too. So clearly there's other stuff that they care about more than Trump's racism.
As a sidenote, I catch myself expecting that _all_ minorities should vote 100% for Clinton. This is another example of the kind of complacency that led to this win in the first place. Trump was going on and on about how "democrats feel entitled to black votes without doing anything to help black people". Now, a policy specifically designed to help black people will get waves of criticism from Breitbart, but the point stands, and I think that Democrats shouldn't feel entitled to votes just because they aren't terrible.
Nobody criticizes any plan to help black people based on it's intent. You seem to be confusing intent with desired results, perhaps on purpose. Democrat's intent has been ostensibly to help black people (and certainly rank and file democrats really are altruistic) but the result has been the exact opposite for Black families. It doesn't matter where you go in the country, even in a deep blue city in a deep blue state where evil Republicans are nary to be found, Black people are suffering, and you only have one party to blame. I know to some, just stating this will brand me as a racist but until we can collectively recognize that what we have been trying hasn't worked, we'll never make the corrections we need.
He didn't have to. The amount of vitriol directed at him and his supporters by almost every journalist, academic, intellectual, and establishment politician told the voters everything they needed to know.