The combination of media sycophancy and rank charlatanism that elevated someone with no record of public service whatsoever to a stone’s throw from the U.S. Presidency has probably poisoned our Democracy for the foreseeable future, whether he wins or loses, according to several experts whose job it is to study the American political system.
[T]his past week offered a vivid illustration of how little regard Mr. Trump has for the long-held expectations of America’s leaders. He is not only breaking the country’s political norms, he and his campaign aides are now all but mocking them.
Americans have become numb to political leaders lying to them, thanks largely to a media ethos that transforms outright lies instead into subjects for “debate.” The internet-accelerated news cycle of the modern political campaign has also encouraged the public to forget one lie even while the media turns its gaze to another one. In the latter part of his losing 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney ramped up the lying to impressive degrees, lying 533 times over a period of 30 weeks, according to one accounting.
But Romney, at least, had some experience in the workings of our civil society, as the Governor of Massachusetts, for which he could actually claim some success, or at least a minimum level of understanding of governance and its implications. The Trump candidacy—possibly because Trump himself has no experience nor any demonstrable past interest in serving anyone’s interests but his own-- has no such understanding. Trump has proceeded on the assumption that the same social norms that have constrained American politicians in the past do not apply to him. This attitude was immediately reinforced by the cable news conglomerates which quickly rewarded him for his behavior, and he has relied on their complacency and fawning adulation ever since:
Routine falsehoods, unfounded claims and inflammatory language have long been staples of Mr. Trump’s anything-goes campaign. But as the polls tighten and November nears, his behavior, and the implications for the country should he become president, are alarming veteran political observers — and leaving them deeply worried about the precedent being set, regardless of who wins the White House.
Stephen Hess, who served in both the Eisenhower and Nixon Administrations, is in a position to view Trump through a better historical lens than most. Hess, a lifelong Republican, is but one example of many who find the prospect of a Trump Presidency appalling, less for the policies he would actually impose than for the reductive and contemptuous demeaning of the office into something more suitable to the sleaze of “Reality TV:”
“It’s incredibly depressing,” Mr. Hess said of Mr. Trump. “He’s the most profoundly ignorant man I’ve ever seen at this level in terms of understanding the American presidency, and, even more troubling, he makes no effort to learn anything.”
Democrats, of course, are equally concerned about the corrosive impact of Trump upon our future politics, where racism, casual allusions to violence, misogyny and crass vulgarity are permitted to run rampant and not only tolerated, but rewarded as something acceptable.
“I worry that if those of us in politics and the media don’t do a lot of soul-searching after this election, a slightly smarter Trump will succeed in the future,” said Jon Favreau, Mr. Obama’s former chief speechwriter. “For some politicians and consultants, the takeaway from this election will be that they can get away with almost anything.”
The media, however, don’t do “soul-searching.” They rise and fall now with “clicks and eyeballs.” As the Times article notes, many of those interviewed console themselves with the dubious assurance that Trump, as a media celebrity, has been given a “special pass” in this election and his like will not rise again. The double standard applied by the media to Hillary Clinton in this campaign would appear to support that, in a perverse sort of way.
But then again, it’s impossible to imagine Secretary Clinton engaging in these types of antics, simply because she grew up in an environment that respected and valued public service. Trump has carved out a path for future politicians in this country who care about nothing but serving their own egos, whose motivation is not to help but to loot, for whom the idea of actually “serving the public” is an afterthought, at best.