Trump could not succeed but for a large faction that grins at indecency; cheers attacks on Mexicans; sees no need for governing experience; has lost its immunity against populist misinformation and manipulation; believes that establishment officials are trying to destroy the country; elevates cultural cues over substance; and dismisses the possibility of improvement through compromise.

As movement conservatism reaps the pathologies that it sowed (even as its more responsible arms try to kill a monster that they were institutionally complicit in creating), I return once more to the talk radio host who first proved that the base could fall for a polarizing egomaniac with a penchant for crudely insulting women. Rush Limbaugh still purports to be a conservative. Yet he is still engaged in rhetoric so perfectly suited to fueling Trumpism that it is hard to believe he is unaware.

Here is the top of his website as I write this article:

The attendant segment was broadcast Tuesday. In it, Limbaugh led his listeners to believe that the Republican and Democratic establishments are conspiring to destroy the last remnants of the America that was born at the Founding—that these elites have nearly completed their plot to have illegal aliens overrun the nation, steal elections for corrupt Democrats, and treat conservatives as state enemies. Lest you think I exaggerate, here’s a condensed version of the monologue in question:

...the objective of the Democrat Party is to take whatever people are in this country illegally and allow them to vote. That's all this is about. Everything else is a smoke screen. It's not about uniting families or keeping them united. It's not about compassion. It's not about economics. It's not about any of it. It's about expanding the Democrat Party voter rolls…

And now we've closed the circle. And now we're back at why Donald Trump is in the race and why Donald Trump is running away with it. You can get as deep or as shallow in the analysis as you want. But it's about a last chance, a last-gasp effort at preserving the culture that developed after the founding of this country. It's no more complicated than that, folks. The country's under siege from all quarters, and recently the Democrat Party has joined those who have put the country under siege.

...people scratch their heads to this day and cannot understand why a single Republican would ever sign on to this… And we're also back reminding everybody that the establishments of both parties continue to be in denial, and maybe they're not. Maybe they know by now how fully opposed they are and they just got their backs up and they're going, “Well, screw you. We're still gonna get what we want. You're the serfs. We're the elites. We run the show. Screw you… If you don't support what they want, you have to be taken care of, you have to be defeated, you have to be rendered irrelevant, you have to be cast aside, whatever.”

...I have a little headline for you here. The New York Post is reporting new legislation is being pushed that would give illegal aliens the right to vote in certain New York City elections… This proposal to grant illegal aliens in New York City the right to vote would result in 1.3 million new voters… In the 2017 elections, they'd be able to vote for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president, and city council. Just city elections. That's 1.3 million noncitizen residents -- about 500,000 of whom are "undocumented" -- would be able to vote. That has been proposed in New York City. It's not federal elections, just New York City elections. But it's already underway, you see, folks. So discussions of, "Well, if we make the border secure and then..." No, no. No. We don't have time for any of that. We're on the cusp of losing the country.

That's why the anger.

That's why the fear.

It's not just immigration, but it's the biggie. There's all kinds of other associated, ancillary issues that comprise this. There's some other things to add to it, just adds a couple exclamation points. Daily Caller: "Almost 60% of Democrats Think Socialism Is Great for America." It's about preserving the original American culture -- and make no mistake: It's under siege, and has been for a while, and it's losing. "A clear majority of Democrats believe socialism has a 'positive impact on society,' according to a poll by the American Action Network. The political and economic system that wreaks havoc across the world from Venezuela to North Korea is enjoying widespread support in the modern Democratic Party.

...This whole notion of working together, bringing the country together? We're way past that... We're not gonna unify with the liberal Democrats. We're not. There's no candidate out there that can forge a kumbaya.

The people on the left, they don't want to reach common ground with us. We are gnats to them, or worse. We are the Gestapo to them. We're Nazis to them. We are standing in the way of whatever they want.

These people have to be defeated. They have to be overwhelmed. And then after they're defeated they cannot be allowed to bully whoever wins into cowardice and caving in… if you believe in a certain cultural America, it's under siege. There's nothing to join with on the other side in preserving it. They want to tear it down, transform it, and rebuild it. They have to be defeated. This is why the Republican Party's worthless. They don't even think this way. The Republican Party's thinking about showing they can work together, they can cooperate, make Washington work...

...we've got people coming at us that are gonna try to wipe us out and eliminate everything and pretend it didn't happen, corrupt, sabotage, undermine. Whoever the next president is, and whoever's running the next Congress, and whoever nominates the Supreme Court justice, if it's a conservative, you have no idea what's gonna be brought to bear! We're gonna need people with such backbone and guts and steel and iron to hold up and to withstand what's gonna come at 'em, you can't even imagine it.