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There is an ongoing conversation, to which @jayrosen_nyu & others have contributed, about what we are “normalizing” of Donald Trump’s....contributions to American politics and culture. More about this tomorrow.
@jayrosen_nyu Here's @jayrosen_nyu yesterday on how to limit "normalization" Trump's hijacking press coverage with his habit of making outrageous statements the media feels it has to cover because he is President.
Rosen makes some good suggestions. Yet American media and politics have already gone very far in normalizing -- accepting -- things about Trump we didn't from politicians earlier in our history. This is now a snowball rolling downhill.
Take Trump's barrage of racist rage-tweeting against @AOC @IlhanMN @RepPressley & @RashidaTlaib. The racist aspect of this has gotten the most attention. That his targets are all women has gotten some.
Should we believe that what Trump said about these four Congresswomen was any worse than what he said about his first wife to his second? Or about his second wife to his third? Or about any of his wives to the women he cheated on them with?
No one in over two centuries of US history has ever served as President after having been married three times. Or having paid off two women to keep them quiet before his election. Or having close to two dozen women make credible allegations of everything from harassment to rape.
This is a guy who has flaunted his depraved personal morals AND treated women badly all his life, and every bit of it has been normalized. It is accepted. It is not a subject of regular comment in politics, or in the press (outside of stories involving legal proceedings).
Nor is this all. Trump has a long history as a dishonest businessman, and even now uses his position to direct government money into his own pockets. This is normalized -- accepted -- as well.
Also normalized: Trump's rank, stinking, putrid ignorance of virtually every policy subject. He doesn't know anything, is too lazy to learn, and shows his ignorance and laziness at nearly every public meeting.
Here is @FinancialTimes US editor @EdwardGLuce just today, on Trump in a meeting with the Pakistani prime minister making up a request from the Indian prime minister for US mediation in Kashmir.
No American who had read so much as a Wikipedia entry on the history of the Kashmir situation would go near the subject of getting the US involved in mediation. It would be like volunteering to pet a wild skunk. Trump never reads anything, so he didn't know.
In American politics, all of this has been normalized, all of it accepted. The entire Republican Party is downright enthusiastic about it. The Democratic Party in control of the House of Representatives shrugs.
So with all respect to @jayrosen_nyu, I don't think mere disengagement by legitimate media is going to do the trick as far as clearing out the rot Trump has introduced into our politics. Contempt for the contemptible is more like it.
We have a complex system of government for a vast and complex country. We can't expect it to function if we accept as normal moral depravity, corruption, and willful ignorance of what government does by those in power -- and as of right now, we do. [end]
