Among his other achievements, Donald Trump is the most politically successful conspiracy theorist in American history. In a classic essay, the historian Richard Hofstadter argued that the “paranoid style” is woven through the fabric of American history, running from the anti-Mason and anti-Catholic crusades of the nineteenth century to the McCarthy Era’s hyper-vigilance about communism after World War II. Yet as pervasive as conspiracy theories often were, according to Hofstadter, they flourished on the fringes of American society rather than emanating from the centers of power. One might argue that Hofstadter was overly sanguine about the American elite, but in broad terms his argument makes sense. After all, Millard Fillmore only shifted to the nativist Know-Nothing Party after he left the presidency. And while Richard Nixon was an ally of Joseph McCarthy at the beginning of his career, and in private was given to all sorts of dark mutterings about plots against him by hidden enemies, he was much more restrained in his public persona as vice-president and president.

Trump is different. The paranoid style is not just something he occasionally displays, it’s pretty much his whole wardrobe. He became a Republican star by loudly questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States, and he became the presumptive Republican nominee on the same day he raised the idea that the Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination. Along the way, Trump has propounded conspiracy theories on a wide range of topics, including climate change (“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” he tweeted in 2012). And as if to prove his conspiratorial bona fides, he’s taken up the most unhinged version of the anti-vaxxer cause: “I am being proven right about massive vaccinations—the doctors lied,” he tweeted in 2014. “Save our children & their future.”

Thanks to the megaphone he’ll enjoy as the Republican nominee, anything Trump says, no matter how far-fetched, will make mainstream news.

Trump’s proclivity toward outlandish stories about hidden machinations will present a particular problem to his likely general-election opponent, Hillary Clinton. Given his long record of conspiracy-mongering, it’s unquestionable that he’ll deploy the many lurid stories that have long circled around the Clintons, and no doubt cook up new ones. To be sure, the Clintons are no strangers to mudslinging: In the 1990s, the right-wing media was rife with accusations that the Clintons were involved with everything from drug dealing to the murder of their aide Vincent Foster, with plenty of juicy stories on the side about Bill Clinton’s affairs, which gained some traction thanks to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

But there’s a crucial difference between the 1990s and now, though: The most sensational and unproven stories won’t just stay on the right. Thanks to the megaphone he’ll enjoy as the Republican presidential nominee, anything Trump says, no matter how far-fetched, will make mainstream news. And Trump has prepared an echo chamber network ready to spread rumors, which runs from the dirty tricks operative Roger Stone (who is an unofficial hatchet man for the campaign), to the radio host Alex Jones (whose show, Infowars, Trump has appeared on), to the National Enquirer (whose anti-Ted Cruz stories were reportedly engineered by Stone).

Trump has already previewed one major line of attack: that Hillary Clinton was an enabler to Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual predations. “She has been really ugly in trying to destroy Bill’s mistresses,” Trump recently told The New York Times. Stone’s 2015 book, The Clintons’ War on Women, will provide the playbook for this message. Among Stone’s accusations are that Chelsea Clinton was the product of an illegitimate relationship her mother had with her former law partner Webb Hubbell; that Bill Clinton has an incriminating friendship with the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and possibly slept with underage girls; and that Hillary Clinton is an “evil” lesbian who is having an affair with her aide Huma Abedin. Once voiced by Trump, these rumors will be echoed by Republican partisans all across America.