In the wake of the Iowa caucuses on Monday evening, the media has begun to play its swan song for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump, who led in the polls leading up to the caucus, finished second behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and just a few hundred votes ahead of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. The media has begun to sound the alarms that the Trump campaign was just a passing phase, despite months of wall-to-wall press, due to its inability to mobilize supporters in the Hawkeye State. But love him or hate him, whether he wins or loses, Trump has left his mark on presidential politics and campaign tactics forever.

Trump highlights a now-deafening truth to modern politics: when it comes to winning votes, rhetoric and relatability trump substance. In spite of highly controversial calls to ban Muslims from entering the country, labeling Mexican immigrants as rapists and imitating the disabled, Trump has built a political force out of his supporters who see him as the most substantive and personable candidate. Trump shares the angers of his electorate, speaks like his electorate and has high, if not impossible, hopes. For his disenfranchised base, who are tired of slick-talking politicians who make big claims but boast little accomplishments, this is gold.

Let’s keep some perspective on what happened Monday night. Cruz, perhaps the most conservative member of the Senate and most evangelical candidate since Mike Huckabee (who also won Iowa), won the Republican vote in Iowa over a billionaire with no political experience, who self-funded more hats than ads in the state. Trump, with little to no ground operation, came in close second ahead of a candidate that the majority of establishment Republicans have thrown endorsements behind. And what’s more? Trump currently leads the polls in the next three states with primaries.

This phenomenon is nothing new. Candidates who are more relatable in their personalities, anger and words have been the dominating force in both political parties for some time now. It’s the reason why a 74-year old self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Senator from Vermont can fill stadiums educating young voters on the intricacies of campaign finance and inequality in a raspy Brooklyn accent: his anger, urgency and progressive agenda is highly relatable.

It’s the same reason then-first-term Senator Barack Obama was named the candidate most people would like to get a beer with en route to winning the 2008 Presidential Election. It’s the same reason that for a brief moment at the 2008 Republican Convention Sarah Palin looked like the future of the party. It’s the same reason that Cruz was able to turn out a huge number of evangelical conservatives on Monday night.

Conversely, pre-packaged politics as usual has left a sour taste in voters’ mouths, and why being “establishment” is suddenly the political equivalent of having a big red “A” sewn across your chest. Call it political correctness or whatever else, the fact is that people can smell out fake politicians, and they have responded that they don’t like the smell. It’s a large part of why Mitt Romney wasn’t able to pull off an upset in 2012 and why Jeb Bush never panned out as the inevitable Republican candidate in 2016. It’s why Hillary Clinton has once again struggled to inspire voters, despite presenting an impressive legislative history.

Trump has been able to fly in the face of conventional wisdom of American campaigns at just about every turn. He holds massive rallies and delivers speeches without teleprompters, or sometimes, it seems, talking points. He says wildly offensive things and does not back away from them, sometimes even defending them. His announcement speech was delivered at a fourth-grade reading level and even his most complicated policy ideas have not been delivered much more eloquently.  He has admitted to changing his positions on key Republican issues such as abortion. He is willingly writing off the notion of “political correctness,” and his supporters just can’t get enough.

Make no mistake, Trump is probably not the future of American politics. His 24-hour media coverage has meant that he has alienated many minorities, independents and even some within the party he is running for. But the way Trump has run, with his news-grabbing stories, the tabloidization of politics and his loud, crass and direct rhetoric has energized a sect of voters who have always thought poorly of “politics as usual” but didn’t have the candidate that reflected that. Now, Trump is that candidate. We saw Monday that his strategy may not be able to translate into votes down the road. But even if Trump loses, he has a tapped a nerve among the electorate that future candidates will be forced to attempt. By Trump logic, to be a viable candidate for president in our modern age, records on issues and legislative accomplishments pale in comparison the value of being a real person that says what they believe and does not apologize. And if that future candidate is able to move them from the rallies to the ballot box, the future of political campaigns will be decidedly “Trumpian.”