The most insidious legacy of the Trump era

In the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump did the following things: he falsely accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating their neighbors’ pets; invited a comedian on stage during a rally to call Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of waste”; said he wouldn’t mind if someone shot the reporters who cover his meetings; fantasized that former Rep. Liz Cheney had guns”trained on her face”; called America a “dustbin for the world”; and pretended drop a microphone in public. He then decisively won the presidential election on Tuesday evening, capturing every battleground state in the country.

That Trump routinely gets away with saying things that would have ended the career of any other politician is hardly a new observation. People have been making this point since he launched his first campaign nine years ago. There are plenty of theories to explain the phenomenon, and we’ll get to them in a moment. But first, do me a favor and read that paragraph above again. Monitor your reflexive response. Do you find yourself skimming indifferently, or do you notice your attention starting to wander? Are you rolling your eyes at what seems like yet another scandalous catalog of Trump’s alleged misdeeds, or mentally quibbling over my characterizations? (He clearly was Just kidding about Cheney.) Maybe you think you missed one of these moments, or maybe you’re not quite sure. Didn’t he say something about shooting reporters before? Who can remember: all these things merge together.

What you’re experiencing is the result of Trump’s clearest political achievement, and perhaps his most lasting legacy: In his nearly decade as America’s protagonist, he has thoroughly desensitized voters to behavior that in another era they would find disqualifying. have considered in a president. The national bar for outrage continues to rise; the ability to be shocked is diminished.

Trump is not the first modern president to contribute to this national numbing effect. Richard Nixon’s abuse of power destroyed the idyllic image that many Americans had of the presidency, creating a skepticism that would eventually evolve into generational cynicism. And Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky — complete with the airing of every graphic detail by opponents, and the rush to excuse his indiscretions by allies — helped normalize the idea that presidents don’t need to be moral role models. are.

But when it comes to lowering our collective expectations of presidential behavior, Trump is a unique figure. The boundaries he has crossed entrepreneurially – legal, ethical, constitutional, moral – are too numerous to mention. (Besides, there’s a good chance you’d be bored and abandon this article if I tried.) But it seems worthwhile to mention just a few of Trump’s statements here. FirstS. He is the first president to try to stay in power after losing an election. He is the first president to be impeached twice (for trading military aid for political favors from the Ukrainian president, and for sending a violent mob to storm the Capitol). He is the first to be convicted of a crime (for crimes related to hush money payments to an adult film star with whom he had an affair), and the first to be found liable for sexual abuse (for assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a department store locker room). He shows no remorse for these actions. In fact, he has always denied any wrongdoing, even boasting that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing the support of his base.

Trump’s apologists might argue that his success is a symptom, not the cause, of the country’s corrupt character. Alternatively, something about his public persona, forged in the New York tabloids and on reality TV, may make people uniquely tolerant of his sins. After all, the same North Carolina voters who gave him the state’s sixteen Electoral College votes this week also rejected a Trump-centric proposal. candidate for governor who was caught making vile anti-Semitic and racist comments on a porn site. Trump has also undoubtedly been helped by Republican politicians who cowardly defend everything he does, by blundering Democrats who have struggled to provide a compelling alternative, and by a press corps still limited by its “preference for coherence.”

In any case, the fact remains that Trump’s shamelessness is damaging political culture. Every time he crosses a new line, he makes it that much easier for the next one to do so. Nearly a decade into the Trump era, too many Americans have internalized the idea that it is strange and foolish to expect our political leaders to be good people. But this smarter-than-thou attitude only allows Trump and his impersonators to act with impunity.

Is it possible to re-sensitize an electorate to scandals and atrocities? Don’t know. Perhaps we first try to remember how we felt when this was all new.

In recent weeks, Gen Z voters have been sharing videos of themselves on TikTok listening – because what they’re saying is the first time – to Trump’s infamous statements Access to Hollywood band. I loved watching these videos and reading some of the young people job interviews in The WashingtonPostheartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. Brigid Quinn, a 15-year-old from Georgia who had never heard the former or future president say “grab them by the pussy,” told the newspaper that she “didn’t understand how people thought this was normal.” Kate Sullivan, a 21-year-old college student from Ohio, was also shocked when she heard it for the first time. “I only recently got into politics,” she says. “The fact that people knew about it, and he still won, I think is pretty wild.”

A less cynical era may dawn again.