“Trump's draft acceptance speech [is] a remarkable piece of oratory, cannily crafted, framed by massive lies and distortions, crammed with incoherence, and yet, I'm afraid to say, scarily potent. It invents a reality—that the U.S. is in a state of chaos, lawlessness and soaring crime; that the world is careening toward catastrophe—and then makes a classic argument for a strongman to set things straight.

”This is a very new departure for politics in a liberal democracy. We've never heard an appeal from a major party platform to junk traditional democratic norms, and cede power to a new tyrant, whose magical powers will somehow cause almost every problem in the country to disappear. In this election, the very basis of liberal democracy is on the ballot. ... 

“The speech is entirely about fear, to be somehow vanquished by a single man's will to power. Its core message is what America was founded to resist. ...

”It can happen here. It is happening here. No election has been more important in my lifetime."

-- Andrew Sullivan, live-blogging Day 4 of the Republican National Convention for New York magazine.