Whenever I hear Donald Trump speak, I think of Rush Limbaugh.

Between 1988 and 1998, I listened to Rush at least twice a week while working on projects related to my education and work. At first, some of his commentary seemed a bit over the top, but I found myself sometimes laughing in spite of myself. During his earlier years, he balanced his snarky comments about others with a willingness to poke fun at himself.

After Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, however, Rush seemed to become angrier, less self-aware, and more predictable. He spent less time criticizing ideas and more time trashing the people who disagreed with him. And if his victims weren’t white non-disabled straight males, he used those differences as part of his belittling campaigns. Women who disagreed with him were either ugly, lesbian, whores, or feminazis. “We love you!” Rush chanted in a poor imitation of Nelson Mandela’s voice during Mr. Mandela’s first tour of the United States. His attacks on Hillary Clinton were especially vicious. His messages were clear: if you don’t agree with me, you’re stupid, a jerk, or both; I don’t apologize because I’m rarely wrong; and we white straight nondisabled men are the true victims.

And he became more and more popular. Once while in a hotel room in State College, Pennsylvania in 1995, I found his resonant, pompous voice on three of the four AM stations I could access. He became wealthy and influential, especially among conservative Christians and their radio preachers. Republican leaders revered him, refusing to criticize any of his patter. But by the time I moved to Washington, Dc in 1998, Rush and his acolytes had stopped my slide towards conservatism, and I found other sources of entertainment between noon and three PM on weekdays.

Like Rush, Donald Trump is a consummate communicator and salesperson. Like Rush, his primary fans are white males. Like Rush, he is more interested in trashing the character of those who disagree with him than discussing solutions to the problems we face. Like Rush, he will incorporate differences into his attacks, as Megyn Kelly and his two prior wives have discovered.

Woe to those who challenge The Donald. He continues to trash those he defeated in the Republican primary, and has bombarded small businesses who claim he owes them money with blizzards of lawsuits to stop them from pressing their claims in court. And don’t expect much from his allies. Like Rush, many conservative Christian leaders have enthusiastically endorsed him despite his prior failed marriages, his support of the pornographic industry, and his shady business practices.

Finally, both Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump have played a key role in unifying the conservative Christian, neoconservative, and libertarian wings of the Republican party, not by finding common ground on their policy differences, but by establishing who’s in and who’s out and by crafting the crash-and-burn rhetorical approach to demean those outside of the GOP party boundary. While presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush; governors Jeb Bush and John Kasich; senators John McCain and Ted Cruz; and others have refused to bow to The Donald’s will, their refusal to strongly criticize Rush Limbaugh’s more incendiary comments have given them less credibility.

We’ll never know if Mr. Trump’s candidacy could have been nipped in the bud if these leaders had stood up to Rush’s bullying behavior, but we do know that all of us are stuck with him until at least November 8.

Or perhaps until the end of January, 2025.