Love him, loath Him, or be utterly indifferent to him there’s no denying that Ronald Reagan stood at the head of a massive movement in American Politics. Where Goldwater failed Reagan succeeded at seizing the Republican from the ‘Rockefellers’ and made it into the American Conservative Party. Ever since his victory over Carter in 1980 and his follow-up unprecedented 49 state crushing of Mondale in 84 Reagan has been the standard and the platonic ideal for every GOP national candidate until Trump.

The horrid truth, I think it is horrid no matter from where you approach it on the political spectrum except as a Trumpist is that Trump now commands the GOP more than Reagan.

In 1980 Reagan won nearly 44 million votes, about 19% of the entire American population supported him. 1984’s titanic victory came with Reagan winning 54.5 million votes and increasing the percentage of the population that supported him to 23%. (These percentage are of all people in the United States not just those eligible or just those who bothered to vote.)

With the 2016 election while losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college Trump gathers 62.9 Million votes, about 19% of the total population, comparable to Reagan’s popularity with more raw votes.

This year’s election the results are looking like Trump increased his vote total to 74.1 million votes representing a popular support of about 22% very nearly the same as Reagan’s but with a fanatical base of support willing to discount actual facts about the election outcome and equally willing to jettison decades of conservative positions for personal loyalty to Trump.

It has been 32 years since the GOP’s idol occupied the White House and with Trump his ghost has been exorcised from the party. The first real test of Trump command of the party and its candidates will come next month when we see how many national Republicans are willing the incur the child-king’s by attending the Inauguration of the new president.