Demonization as a Both Sides Thing

Joe Scarborough, who pilloried Hillary Clinton for years, had his own interesting twist on good people on “both sides” for his Thanksgiving moment:

But claiming “both sides” are hesitant to enter public service is off base in a few different ways.
Yes, effective office holders who are qualified to run for President on the Democratic ticket may be hesitant to run for fear of being demonized. But the Republican Party has demonstrated that you, too can win the Party nomination if you are unqualified, incompetent, corrupt, and adept at distracting voters from your sheer awfulness with obtuse, yet vicious demonization of your opponents. Scarborough’s tweet implies that this is a peculiarly trumpian phenomenon,  it Trump is simply the logical consequence of Republican electoral strategy over the course of several decades. And nothing suggests that we are ever going back. It would have been more accurate to suggest that good people can feel discouraged from running for the Democratic nomination for president and bad people can feel encouraged to run for the Republican presidential nomination.