"We were dealing with someone who was maybe ahead of her time."

"Her irreverence and disdain for the establishment of her own party and her embrace of the 'isms' — nativism, isolationism, you know — she blew the walls out on the political norms before Donald Trump did. She was obviously onto something. She had crowds five times the size of McCain’s. We think it was all about her political skills, but it was also about her message. She railed against the mainstream media, she attacked all of us, her own advisers. That her audiences were so enthusiastic about that was the early signal that the party had changed."

Says Nicolle Wallace (who worked as a communications strategist for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, and now has an MSNBC)(interviewed by Ana Marie Cox in the NYT).

Sarah Palin really did start it all, didn't she?