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The cocreator of the Washington Post's "Made by History" blog reveals how the rise of conservative talk radio gave us a Republican Party incapable of governing and paved the way for Donald Trump.America's long road to the Trump presidency began on August 1, 1988, when, desperate for content to save AM radio, top media executives stumbled on a new format that would turn the political world upside down. They little imagined that in the coming years their brainchild would polarize the country and make it nearly impossible to govern. Rush Limbaugh, an enormously talented former disc jockey -- opinionated, brash, and unapologetically conservative -- pioneered a pathbreaking infotainment program that captured the hearts of an audience no media executive knew existed.