Listen, one of the biggest things I absolutely hate about Trump is that 'winning' BS. It was old, and I told that to my relatives (who voted Trump) early on. It sounds like a 3rd grader. In reality, I would have hated JFK for the same reason, he spoke in similar cliches (although not as many as Trump). All while doing really stupid things (don't get me started on JFK either).
But he won because Democrats keep lambasting the US. Europe is far, far worse than the US, in how it approaches other countries, as well as their reliance on the Middle East for petroleum, Russia for natural gas, and the Chinese for core, technology infrastructure. And Europeans are arrogant about their role in the world.
It's good that we Americans question ourselves. But the Democrats take it to a whole new level of self-bashing. If you listen to the Democrats, China is pro-environmentalism, and the US is destroying the world. And Democrats say we should be like Europe, when Europe itself differs greatly! My 2 favorite European countries are the Czech Republic and Switzerland, and both are more capitalist than we are, in solving real problems!
And that's why Trump won most. Because when a party just completely bashes the average American over and over, it's easy to give into a guy that says "you're great, the US is great, and we're gonna win." It's amazing how the US media and Democrats basically turned Trump into a candidate ... from the barely 4% polling he was at before primaries started. That was worse than Gary Johnson (as a Republican) in 2012.