Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Today the Democratic National Convention kicks off. The second of the big party conventions. We are waist deep, neck deep in the US electoral cycle at this point, and, you know, the funny thing is how both of these parties have coalesced with such extraordinary enthusiasm around candidates that most of the leaders, and when I say the leaders I mean the party elites, I mean the leaders in Congress, I mean the donors, and I mean the media, had been saying privately, and some publicly, that they strongly opposed.

So the hypocrisy in the system at the high levels is very apparent. And you know I think it's worth talking about both of these because it doesn't reflect the way the people think about the candidates but it does help to explain why so many American citizens are fed up and think the political system is broken. On the GOP side, of course, the Republican Party has lost three electoral cycles with Trump on top. They have privately said that they wanted anyone else but Trump. They'd back anyone else that was big, big money behind DeSantis and behind Nikki Haley and anyone else they could find. And you had J.D. Vance, who was saying that Trump was an opioid for the masses until he got addicted himself.