In 2017, shortly after the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, presidential counselor and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway took to the stage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and quipped that the event would instead be “T-PAC” that year — a nod to the idea that the gathering was becoming a celebration of an individual more than an ideology.

This development underscored a fundamental truth of politics: Everybody loves a winner. Nothing succeeds like success.