Political theorist Michael Bacon calls my attention to this passage from Emerson's essay "Demonology":
It would be easy in the political history of every time to furnish examples of this irregular success, men having a force which without virtue, without shining talent, yet makes them prevailing. No equal appears in the field against them. A power goes out from them which draws all men and events to favor them. The crimes they commit, the exposures which follow, and which would ruin any other man, are strangely overlooked, or do more strangely turn to their account.
As this NYT piece the other day made clear, Trump's prospects for winning again in November are very real. None of this is surprising once one bears in mind the lessons of Achen and Bartels on how democracy really works.
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