President Donald Trump’s vicious tweets about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, whom he called “low I.Q. Crazy” and said “was bleeding badly from a face-lift” when he saw her around New Year’s Eve, have re-energized the evergreen complaint that he is diminishing his office. “Inappropriate. Undignified. Unpresidential,” sputtered Jeb Bush. “Mr. President,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham chided, “your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.” His colleague Ben Sasse pleaded, “Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.” And Brzezinski herself, in a Washington Post op-ed with Joe Scarborough, her Morning Joe co-host and fiancé, wrote that “concerns about his unmoored behavior go far beyond the personal. America’s leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president.”

Trump isn’t staining the presidency so much as redefining it. He’s shown that anyone can be president, even someone who completely lacks the ability or experience to do the job. Thanks to Trump—the first president never to have served in the military, worked in government, or held elected office—the pool of prospective candidates is overflowing. Whereas only politicians or the occasional general, like Dwight Eisenhower, could credibly compete for the White House, today billionaires and celebrities of all sorts are imagining themselves in the Oval Office. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently toured small towns in Iowa, as part of his “year of travel,” and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has openly entertained a run for office. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t ruled politics out,” he said last year. “I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale.”

As National Review senior writer David French wrote in a piece touting Johnson:

Since it’s 2017—and since a less popular celebrity made it to the White House—the question has arisen: Will The Rock bring the people’s eyebrow to politics? Will we see the rhetorical equivalent of the people’s elbow delivered to the solar plexus of his political opponents? Questions that once seemed crazy to ask are now a normal part of American political life.

In January, I joined the bandwagon, too, making the case that perhaps Democrats should “take a page out of the Republican playbook and put a celebrity up for national office.” A “magnetic, attractive movie star would have a far better chance” of turning out the Democratic base than “just another accomplished, dowdy politician,” I argued. “The party could recruit [Meryl] Streep and others to bait Trump, and perhaps, as [Michael] Moore suggested, groom some to be presidential candidates. In 2020, the Democrats could run Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyonce, Matt Damon, or Rosie O’Donnell.”

Now, more than five months into Trump’s disastrous presidency, I’m having second thoughts. Just because almost anyone can be president—provided they are over 35 and a natural-born U.S. citizen—doesn’t mean that the Democrats should follow the Republicans’ lead by putting up an angry, anti-political celebrity for president. In fact, history suggests that trying to replicate Trump is the exactly wrong approach for Democrats. While there’s merit in appealing to the frustration with political elites, which Trump has exploited, the smarter move would be to embody that message in a candidate who otherwise contrasts with Trump. Because after four years of Trumpian chaos and incompetence—if, that is, he even serves out his full term—America is going to be desperate for the opposite.