This rhetoric fuels conspiratorial thinking. After all, if Sanders or Trump are right that delivering socialized medicine or restoring manufacturing jobs is “so easy,” the reason for their failure must be explained by the sinister deeds of shadowy malefactors conspiring against “us.” That populist conspiratorial climate—thick on the left and right—is a profound threat to democracy wherever it materializes, as history demonstrates.

On a practical level, it drives presidents to ram through major legislation on party line votes, or to simply use executive orders like monarchical decrees, in order to feed the hungry maw they helped create. And when the other party is swept to power, in large part thanks to the backlash against such partisan excess, they do the exact same thing. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Lost in the process is any appreciation of or appetite for following the constitutional and democratic norms that encourage Madisonian compromise and debate.

But because the constitutional structure remains—for now, at least—despite the erasure of those norms, the impulse to tear down the structures that remain obstructions to partisan power intensifies. The Electoral College, the filibuster, the Supreme Court’s nine seats, even the rule of having senators represent states rather than the popular vote; these institutions and structures intended to foster deliberation and compromise are seen as illegitimate barriers to total victory. The features of the constitutional order become bugs in the eyes of the warring factions that crave zero-sum victories. This dynamic, as much as anything, gave us President Donald Trump in 2016—and almost gave us President Bernie Sanders.