An interpretation of what 'happening' is is fare, but public awareness of why things are happening or the extent of them happening is very low by any visible measure.
At this point, it appears that a group of behind the curtain people took over behind the curtain institutions a long time ago and was steering western civilization in a direction those who created and ran the behind the scenes organizations see as evil. With Trump they have regained control of the core organizations and seem confident that they will maintain control regardless of which public facing people are in power.
This would suggest that much of the populist agenda will not be implemented the way the people think, but a slow redirection of culture will happen over the next decades. They are the invisible hand made up of hidden groups that 'know' what is best for humanity. Welcome to the new 'new world'.