As I watched the president of the United States do his usual shtick for suckers, in the kind of place where unfunny nightclub acts thrive and in a city built on PT Barnum’s law, I couldn’t help but marvel (sigh, again) at the dumbing down of everything in the Donald Trump era.

Granted, partisan conventions are hardly crucibles of rhetorical sophistication and intellectual rigor. They are places where hyperbole is the coin of the realm, where the only currency that matters is rousing the faithful.

But Trump is an exaggeration of everything, an excess of excesses, whether it’s narcissism or prevarication or puerility. And his cartoonish – and intermittently successful – approach to politics is a contagion, leading adults to behave like children -- calling each other by juvenile nicknames, taking credit for things they didn’t do and lying when they are caught.

The infection was evident Saturday as the top of the Republican ticket, Sen. Dean Heller and Attorney General Adam Laxalt, were positively Trumpian in their remarks, with the senator saying he alone wrote the tax bill and the gubernatorial hopeful making up stuff as he went. Resistance is futile; assimilation is complete.

The Trump sickness also has afflicted the opposition, from D.C. to Nevada. The Democrats, unhinged on the platform for the unhinged known as Twitter, did not rise to the occasion, spewing venom and nonsense. They were proud of the throng of protesters that welcomed Trump to the Suncoast, but some of the signs and epithets were as crass as the man they were mocking.

And in Reno at the state Democratic convention, reduced to a sideshow by the Trump visit, Rep. Jacky Rosen contributed to the froth, saying Heller was “guilty of the biggest broken political promise in modern Nevada history” because of his health-care flip flop(s).

But this was the president’s day to chew scenery and hug (literally and figuratively) Heller, making him out to be the second coming of, well, Harry Reid. By the time the day was over, Heller was The Indispensable Senator, the man who was “shaky” at the beginning – by all but disavowing Trump in 2016 -- but had achieved greatness this year – presumably because he had finally bent his knee.

Two inconstant men entering into a marriage of convenience is the stuff of great love stories. “Dean and Donald: How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Each Other.”

The president’s speech itself was singularly uneventful, the usual mixture of obvious falsehoods, solipsistic rhapsodies and unsubtle dog-whistling. Trump seemed quite pleased to add “Wacky Jacky” to his catalogue of sneering nicknames, this one for Heller foe, Rep. Jacky Rosen.

In so doing, he not only seemed to inspire Laxalt and Heller, but he emphasized what his real talent is: Trump is an alchemist who took the raw materials of politics – fakery and bombast – and combined them into a potent potion that has cast a spell on many who (rightly) have found themselves alienated from the bland politicians who have serially let them down.

He’s like an evil twin of Eddie Albert in “Oklahoma,” using his charm to peddle snake oil and other nostrums to the benighted, always one step ahead of getting pinched. And his faithful, including those at the Suncoast on Saturday, just can’t say no.

Politicians love to reduce complicated issues to sound bites, and Trump is a master. He framed the election as between Republicans, who want “strong borders, no crime,” and Democrats, who desire “open borders, let MS-13 all over our country.”

This is rank demagoguery, but the crowd lapped it up.

Trump’s lack of self-awareness and irony deficiency allowed him to repeatedly refer to the “f—e news media” in a place where the largest newspaper, the only major outlet to endorse him in 2016, is almost literally fake. Owned by Sheldon Adelson, it does not publish stories of major campaign events or actions that might hurt GOP candidates such as Laxalt, and it employs columnists with no background in journalism who spew either party-prepared nonsense or wackadoodlery. And the “reporter” tasked with covering Trump was plucked from her gig writing conservative columns.

But for the president, it’s fine journalism if it’s the fox guarding the Trump house.

Besides avoiding the family separation controversy he caused and then claimed to have fixed, the president’s words were not that surprising. We have heard this before. (He also, in his self-congratulatory address, shockingly omitted any reference to 1 October, the worst mass shooting in American history, which occurred not far from where he was speaking.)

Indeed, it was a family bonding that occurred Saturday that was the real surprise as Laxalt and Heller fully embraced Trump and his tactics, showing that they will be inseparable until November, a risky political calculation. If Trump is an albatross – and we have four-plus months so don’t be blue-waving goodbye just yet – the images from this weekend will be used by the Democrats many times.

Saturday brought into stark relief that the top two races will be replete with even more generalities and banalities than usual, as two manifestly weak Republican candidates go up against two relatively unknown Democrats easily caricatured as “Wacky Jacky” and, in Laxalt’s new formulation unveiled at the Suncoast, “Shady Steve.”

Heller, who could be in an X-Men sequel given his mutant-like ability to shapeshift and survive during his career, declared Saturday of a still-unpopular tax bill: “I wrote it, and I fought for it, and I’m so pleased that this president signed it.”

This is, of course, false, and surely news to the other senators who had a hand in its crafting. I am not sure if Heller, who may well lose track of his legions of positions on health care and immigration, believes that or is simply delusional. You know, the same question often asked about Trump’s behavior.

Laxalt’s performance was even more Trumpian, as he addressed the crowd in his usual visibly programmed way and once again showed how ill-prepared he is for the state’s top job.

Let me count the ways.

His new nickname for his foe, Steve Sisolak, is supposed to portray the Clark County commissioner as “corrupt,” as his campaign manager put it last week. Sisolak surely will have to answer, as all local officials do, for taking gobs of cash, voting on development projects and being tight with ubiquitous lobbyists.

But this Laxalt campaign stratagem has an obvious purpose and is positively Trumpian: Laxalt knows the Democrats will portray him as being in the pocket of the state’s most power private citizen, Sheldon Adelson. Laxalt is hopelessly compromised by that relationship, as his repeated actions demonstrate. But if he can muddy those waters – as Trump did with “Crooked Hillary” – he can make that issue a wash. It’s smart, obvious and hopelessly cynical.

Laxalt also engaged in Trumpian contradictions by praising the president for the booming economy (sorry, Gov. Sandoval) while claiming regulations were crushing Clark County businesses. He ludicrously asserted Clark County residents “don’t feel safe at night,” (sorry, Sheriff Lombardo) apparently because Steve is doing Shady things. But Laxalt is the state’s chief law enforcement officer and has been holding all those summits. And then my favorite, his declaration that he is “not a career politician.” Politics is essentially the ONLY career Laxalt has had since moving to Nevada (he was a “trainwreck” in his brief stint as a private-sector lawyer and immediately began running for attorney general) and the man whose name he is trading on, ex-Sen. Paul Laxalt, was a career politician -- for three and a half decades, in fact.

Trump has nothing on Laxalt when it comes to empty bravado.

The president’s style and lack of substance clearly infect all who come into his orbit, and even those who would like to send him crashing back to Earth. Saturday showed that Laxalt and Heller see it as a formula to emulate, both with shameless statements that have little basis in fact and with their willingness to go scorched earth on their opponents in two nationally watched races this early in the general election season.

“It's tough stuff but we're winning,” Trump said as he prepared to depart. “We're winning like nobody has ever won before.”

Nevada Democrats are hoping that those words ring hollow and don’t resonate come Nov. 6.

Correction: This column has been updated to reflect that a quote was inaccurately attributed to Elizabeth Warren and actually came from Jacky Rosen.

Disclosure: Steve Sisolak and Joseph Lombardo have donated to The Nevada Independent. You can see a full list of donors here.

Jon Ralston is the editor of The Nevada Independent. He has been covering Nevada politics for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected] On Twitter: @ralstonreports