Imagine a system where a fascist Boogeyman is held up every election and people reliably vote against them without regard for who they vote for. The other party could put up whatever shitty candidate they wanted whether they espouse the views of the population or not.

Except when the other party sees they lose 3/4 elections in a row by putting up fascist boogeymen, they will statistically stop doing that, since it’s a losing strategy. They can only keep doing that because Americans are showing them that they actually like it better than an actual human being.