Donald Trump says America is a terrible place. Ronald Reagan said America was a great place. Apparently you didn't watch either candidate's speeches at their respective conventions to understand the distinction.
That's one (highly predictable) difference between Reagan and Trump, yes. I wasn't saying that Trump and Reagan shared the same ideology and perspective on America (In fact, that couldn't possibly be true as I said Trump has no ideology and Reagan had an ideology).
I claimed that Reagan and his vision for America
lead to Donald Trump, and in a number of senses. Firstly, I said that Reagan utterly welcomed racists into his party with coded racist tropes and language; that's a historical fact, I gave you one of Reagan's top aides explaining literally that. The relationship between this and Trump shouldn't be surprising; racists are a highly mobilized group due to Fox News, the racists factions of the Tea Party (funded by Ailes, the Koch Bros, Murdoch, etc).
Another really important issue here is that Reagan succeeded in what he wanted --in a pretty powerful example of "be careful what you wish for." Reagan propelled neoliberal capitalism of Reaganomics (as a replacement for the social democratic capitalism of the New Deal). This did what it set out to do --it crippled social safety nets and services, it lowered taxes on the wealthy, it deregulated industries (sometimes intelligently, but often just recklessly), it increased non-protectionist free trade deals, and it obliterated unions and weakened labor laws. It also blew up the military industrial complex and government contracts via privatization also exploded in size --and, for obvious reasons, so did the national debt, income inequality, and money in politics. Never ever really argued for smaller government, just a government that works for the "right" kind of people.
And behold his success: Poor and middle-class communities, and the institutions that support them, have been ravished and are being torn apart (or have been totally torn apart already), and largely in non-trivial, not easily described ways. So now our dear old, bumbling Donald walks into the scene and says all the "Right" things that superficially make sense: Our world is in shambles (Hint: If you're working class or poor, it
is largely in shambles) because all of the living-wage jobs are gone, politicians just answer to the rich and powerful (Also largely true), and also all of our tax money is going to fund Mexicans and Muslims and other immigrants --
and not you, my fellow American! (That last one is largely scapegoating, but is also prevalent and "logical" to them because of what they've heard on Fox News for the past 20 years.)
Yeah, this disastrous presidential candidate was inevitable, given the trajectory that our country has been on.