What I've seen (up until Trump) is that both parties have moved left over a number of years.  The R's of today = the D's of the 1960's and the D's of today = the Socialists/Communists of the 1960's.  If anyone took the time to compare them, the platform of Communist Gus Hall in the 70's was essentially the same as Barack Obama's.  The shift was gradual and many did not notice, until one day they woke up like you did & saw that you didn't change - your party did.  Listen to some of JFK's speeches - the media would call him a "far right radical" today.    I voted for a 3rd party candidate once and won't do so again as long as we have the 2 dominant parties.  Trump had to run either D or R to have any chance of winning. He is a man of the people - his party designation is irrelevant, IMO.  I would love to see him start a new party (maybe the Freedom Party!) because he's the only politician in my lifetime who could pull enough people along to win out of something other than the two traditional parties.