Because this political system couples your support for a set of policy choices to your support for a particular leader, and people perceive that in order to sup

Because this political system couples your support for a set of policy choices to your support for a particular leader, and people perceive that in order to support their team's policy positions, it's simply unavoidable that you may have to accept a poor leader. Seems that simple to me. It's easy to say that if there was a left-version of Trump who promised to implement sweeping tax reform to tax the rich, create a real public option, save the rainforest in Brazil and plant a new one in America, and truly address racism, that the left would say 'forget his policy goals, even if they are so aligned with what I want, I will speak out against him and vote for a republican in the next election'. But perhaps many would see it as still the lesser of two evils to continue to support the poor leader in order to signal support for their team's policies and hopefully implement meaningful change. If we had a different form of democracy, perhaps decoupling leadership from policy choice, would we still be able to elect a Trump? Don't think so. Perhaps the two party system (and the way it has evolved despite not being part of the constitution at all and warned against by George Washington) would be the easier thing to change than the political system per the constitution, but still. It seems the coupling is the culprit.