Now, most recently, National Review and the Weekly Standard reacted to allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore preyed on teenage women while in his 30s by arguing that there are more important things in the world than electing one more Republican. A National Review article by the columnist Katherine Timpf was headlined, “If You Refuse to Condemn Predators Because of Their Politics You’re Disgusting.”

And at the same moment, Bannon dispatched two Breitbart staffers to Alabama to try to cast doubt on the woman who claimed she was groped by Moore when she was 14, and continued urging Alabama voters to send Moore to the United States Senate, rather than his Democratic opponent, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Klan members for the bombing of a black church in Birmingham.

It was an approach mirrored by Republican politicians in Alabama, many of whom also came to Moore’s defense. “Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” said Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler. “If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years,” Alabama State Representative Ed Henry said. “I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can’t be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion.” Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow distanced himself from Moore’s acts, but stood by his support. “I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn’t want to vote for Doug. I’m not saying I support what he did.”

Andrew Breitbart may have said that “politics is downstream from culture.” He may have believed it. I have argued in the past that he did not practice what he preached. Others argued upon his death that the sites he created would be his legacy.

Today, Breitbart has done more than any other website to push the right in a direction where political victories are prioritized even when those victories mean the cultural elevation of men like Donald Trump and Roy Moore, who no responsible parent would want as role models for their sons—or as babysitters for their daughters. Whether Breitbart courted the alt-right and elevated these candidates for lucre, or political power, or to make the culture more bigoted and depraved, or to nihilistically destroy America as it exists under the delusion that it can then remake the nation it as it wishes, its influence has profoundly changed the GOP.

As my colleague David Graham asked when news of the allegations against Moore first broke, “If the party’s members can’t bring themselves to set aside narrow partisan interest and condemn a man whom they despise, with a track record of bigotry, and with multiple on-the-record accusations of improper sexual misconduct with underage women, what behavior and which candidate can they possibly rule out in the future?”