I’m often incredulous at Republican servility to Donald Trump. I’ve struggled to understand how people who’ve spent a lifetime chest-beating about patriotism can be so willing to burn liberal democracy to the ground to protect a man they wouldn’t trust to sell them a used car. So I’ve tried to envision a situation in which I might be tempted to do the same.
There’s no left-wing analogue to Trump in American life, but it’s possible to imagine such a figure. Picture an amalgam of Marianne Williamson and Hugo Chávez, a charismatic ideologue able to speak to the spiritual hunger of lonely, atomized masses.