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The whole point of the Trump era is that literally no one else would touch those ideas, because the media meaning-making machine made them anametha. You could not be anti-illegal immigration or anti-NATO or whatever without inherently drawing earth-shattering criticism. This is why no one else tried it. You have to pass through the wall of overwhelming media coverage, hostile donors funding every manner of opposition, prosecution, lawfare, and pushback. Literally no one else would do this.
Exactly, expressing the idea that maybe unlimited immigration from absolutely anywhere, or unlimited free trade from absolutely anywhere are not unalloyed goods is, or was, outside the overton window regardless of who said it. Anyone who would express it would have gotten the same treatment. Trump noticed a majority of people still largely held that opinion even if they could not express it, saw an opportunity there, so he went and stood outside the window, drawing all the aggro to him. And since he's a legendary tank, to keep the MMORPG allegory going, he's somehow doing fine, and now the overton window is a bit wider than it was before. Outside of the specifics of his first and presumed second presidency, of whether he's too pro-Israel or too close to Russia, or of whether he's capable of wielding the executive bureaucracy effectively, at least his ability to take the slings and arrows is unmatched, and his forceful widening of the overton window was probably a necessary first step for any actual move to the right (or neutralisation of leftward drift).
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The GOP was ready to fold after 2012. It's unclear that anyone without the independent profile of Trump (and the catnip it represented for the mainstream media) would have gotten the same attention for swimming against the tide like that.
A less agreeable person, or someone more beholden to the donors and party might have ended up like Bernie or Cruz, even with the same policies.
That said, now that you have people like Tucker and Vivek and Vance maybe the movement no longer has need of Mohammed.
IMHO this is a crucial period for whether an America first ruling principle takes root, or it doesn't. Trump needs the mandate of heaven and four more years to cement his legacy. Otherwise, as amazing as Tucker, Vivek or Vance may be, they will be relegated to cult crank status like Ron and Rand Paul. Sure, a Freedom Causus exist, and even has some extremely marginal influence in outcomes on the fringe, but otherwise completely feckless no matter how obviously correct they are, or how much their fans really truly love them.
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