“The defining characteristic of our moment is that parties are weak while partisanship is strong,” wrote Marquette University political scientist Julia Azari.4 She’s right, and it’s one of the most important insights for understanding the rise of Trump, the success of more ideologically extreme candidates, and the American political system’s deepening vulnerability to charismatic demagogues. At the beginning of the book, I posed a question: How did a candidate as abnormal as Trump win the Republican primary and end up with such a normal share of the general election vote? Weak parties and
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