WASHINGTON — He’s in our heads.

Even more than we knew.

It isn’t just that he hovered over the Democratic debate on Thursday night: Should the candidates attack him or leave him to self-destruct? Were they talking about him too much or not enough?

It’s more profound than that.

Donald Trump has fundamentally altered the way we experience politics.

We’ve been trying to figure out for three years if he is a mad aberration, doomed to fade, or if he is rewiring the game in some permanent way.

Watching that depressing debate, one must conclude that the rewiring is well underway.

Trump is one of the phoniest people ever to walk the earth. Maybe that’s why he was uniquely suited to tear through the phony conventions and bloated world of consultants that made up politics as usual.

There were a lot of good politicians on the debate stage in Houston. But the night rang hollow as they clung to the old conventions — the overcoached performances, the canned lines, the pandering, the well-worn childhood anecdotes meant to project “relatability.”