Roger Stone the self-identified “Prince of Darkness” has been at the apex of almost every Machiavellian ratfucking dirty trick, lie, smear, indecent, immoral political move and movement since Watergate.

All you really need to know about Roger Stone, personally, is that when he was revealed on national TV during the Senate Watergate Hearings as one of the dirty tricksters who received money from Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (which acronym “CREEP” they adopted  with glee), his mother called him on the phone, mortified that the nation saw that. Roger thought it was “cool.”

Like Trump, Stone was a great friend and admirer of Roy Cohn, one of the most evil individuals our country’s politics have ever produced.  Stone of course admired him and continues his ethos of winning at any cost. Policy doesn’t matter, truth doesn’t matter, only being the most clever sneaky asshole in the room and, of course, the winner matters.

As a partner of Black, Stone, Manafort lobbying firm, he practically created the corrupt PAC fueled political system we sadly labor under today.  With Lee Atwater, these guys pioneered the ugliest form of negative campaigning that we live with today.

His underhanded tricks were part of the 2000 Bush campaign that derailed the Florida recount.  He masterminded the back room manipulations that helped destroy the Reform Party in 2000 and Pat Buchanan’s third party run because Stone saw it as fatal to GOP electoral efforts in 1992 and 1996.

Stone and Trump were made for each other and Stone explains Trump and the modern GOP, another piece of the puzzle like the rise of Christian dominionist evangelical philosophy and the Fox News/talk radio bullshit campaign of disinformation.