You can tell a lot about a political party by its demonology. For the Right, this is a relatively simple affair. They hate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, socialists, black and brown people, and especially black and brown socialists.

American liberalism, however, has an appropriately more complex retinue of monsters. Trump and his ilk, of course, take up a lot of space here. But, as befits a creed so impressed with its own complexity and nuance, there are also a number of monsters from the Left. Some still rage against Jill Stein, implausibly blaming her campaign for Trump’s victory. Many still hold a special hatred for Ralph Nader, whose 2000 campaign supposedly brought us Bush, the Iraq War, and all that followed.

For the party’s real cognoscenti, however, one name still towers above all others as the ultimate example of the irresponsible left: George McGovern, fierce critic of the Vietnam War, and loser of the 1972 presidential election in one of the most lopsided popular votes in American history.