“How can [Trump, Carson, Cruz] be happening? After all, the antiestablishment candidates now dominating the field, aside from being deeply ignorant about policy, have a habit of making false claims, then refusing to acknowledge error. Why don't Republican voters seem to care?

”Well, part of the answer has to be that the party taught them not to care. Bluster and belligerence as substitutes for analysis, disdain for any kind of measured response, dismissal of inconvenient facts reported by the “liberal media” didn't suddenly arrive on the Republican scene last summer. On the contrary, they have long been key elements of the party brand.“

-- Paul Krugman, ”The Donald and the Decider," with a quick look at when the GOP chose attitude over analysis. He says the Trump lineage can be traced back to Palin and then to Bush 43. I'd go back further, to Reagan, but it's a sharp, succinct article for a country with fuzzy memories about the real kind of fuzzy math.