Trump, of course, inaugurated "alternative facts" into the political discourse.

If I remember, it was a Bush II staffer who told a critic that that administration could make its own reality by manipulating the media and the populace - that facts didn't matter. But the Tea Party, a few years later, made the Bush people look like sober political scientists. Nor should we forget the lunacy that was Sarah Palin, the Party's VP nominee eight years before Trump; now we see that she was sort of the opening act for the Trump Show that was to come. (Don't even mention St. Ronald Reagan...)

Trump's gift (to himself and his crew of grifters, if not the country or his Party) was to recognize this trend among right-wing Republican pols and their voters, and go with it. Delusion, denial, and lies being his business plan for many decades, he was already a pro at a political style that most actual politicians aren't actually very good at. Or, sorry, *haven't been very good at* up to now. Because as we see, Trump's imitators and acolytes have crawled out ot the previously unelectable woodwork, and are busily degrading political discourse and public reason at all levels of government - and winning re-election by larger margins than Trump has ever been able to score on the national stage.