Someone once asked me who I thought would be the Democratic equivalent of Donald Trump would be. My answer: Kanye West. He's world-famous, extremely wealthy, narcissistic, unstable, politically ambitious, lacks any self-awareness and is manifestly unfit — except it turned out that he's actually a right-wing anti-semite. I might have answered Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at one time, except he's now endorsed Donald Trump. I'm sure there must be some truly crazy lefty out there who would be a bridge too far for many Democrats but that combination of authoritarianism, pathological character flaws, overwhelming ignorance and demagogic talent seems to inevitably drift toward the right these days.

That is not to say that voters aren't always subject to emotional attachment to their leaders in both parties. In recent decades, Republicans practically worshipped Ronald Reagan and Democrats were head over heels for Barack Obama. There was even a time when even George W. Bush was practically deified.

Still, the Trump phenomenon is different from those examples because he is so unfit for office that it has shaken many Americans' belief in democracy. How could our system allow such a person to dominate our political culture for more than eight years and be within striking distance of the presidency again after having been roundly defeated in the last election?

I thought about that as I watched the Democratic convention last week and a small group of Republicans and former Republicans took the stage to speak out against their former president and exhort their erstwhile comrades to vote for Kamala Harris instead. It wasn't the first time members of the opposing party spoke at a convention. I think of Jeane Kirkpatrick, a Democratic foreign policy expert who drifted into the right wing with those other Democratic apostates known as the neoconservatives. At the 1984........

© Salon