Could Donald Trump run his presidency similar to Ronald Reagan if he's trying to recapture that moment?
Do you mean achieve the same level of success as Reagan did for the party? Because if so, then no. He's simply too offensive and while I do admit he will probably bring in more working class whites to the party (at the expense of other whites turned off by him), he flat out alienated the largest growing voter blocs in this country. Reagan didn't really do that. He wasn't offensive like Trump at all.
Trump's keen awareness of the GOP electorate / working-class in general is pretty great, but his deliver and strategy is too polarizing. At best he will get Republicans a short term boost in support at the expense of long-term damage.
However, policy-wise, aside from the immigration/muslim stuff, I do think he is helping to put the GOP on a path towards policies more suited for the voters needs or desires, and not only the donors, which has historically been the case (and exactly why the voters are infuriated with the GOP establishment now)
This is key. The GOP's problem is that it has been following a strictly neoliberal orthodoxy that was challenged pretty strongly by the 2008 financial crisis. Insistence on eliminating capital gains taxes and Dodd Frank and opposition to infrastructure spending all make it harder to appeal to a broader electorate. Trump fuses it with a nationalism which is a tougher sell for America at large, but I definitely think the GOP will shift away from the Club for Growth crowd in the future. It's not like we haven't seen this before...Mike Huckabee was hardly a doctrinaire fiscal conservative at all (and neither was McCain, really), and both did quite well in the primaries. 2016 is just the culmination of that.
Trump's views on Muslims (and maybe even immigration) may very well go by the wayside in a few months assuming he loses, but I think we're seeing a big shift on trade, healthcare, infrastructure, and possibly taxes on the GOP side of the ledger.
