Donald Trump trashed the political playbook. Then he made up his own set of rules.

Donald Trump's presidential victory defied just about everything supposedly smart people knew about politics and winning the White House. He prevailed by tapping a force that was far more powerful than the strongest debate performance, the most attention-grabbing TV spot, the savviest turnout operation or the highest-profile surrogates, from the White House down. He tapped into seething anger and voters' ravenous desire for change. If people get mad enough, they will storm the polls without prodding -- and without, apparently, the need to confide in opinion pollsters, who largely missed the huge outpouring of Americans displaced by decades of economic restructuring and unsettled by the country's changing complexion and shifting cultural mores. If people get mad enough, they will look past a candidate's overt prejudice, his coarse put-downs of women, his mockery of a disabled journalist, his taunting of a Gold Star family.