I lie awake at night a lot and think about the early days of the Trump presidency, when it seemed like widespread public revulsion at the man - which is largely undiminished - could spur America's political system to reject him and revitalize itself
Instead, what happened is that all the elite institutions that could have leveraged that public anger opted instead for accommodationism - avoiding conflict with Trump and his supporters, only pressuring him in narrow, strategic ways, and steering clear of abnormalizing him
Accommodationism has infected all of our elite institutions now, even ones like the Democratic Party, which is nominally trying to remove him from office. There's little sense that anyone left in elite circles truly considers Trump an existential threat worth panicking over
Trump has been almost fully normalized. The vast majority of his unethical, corrupt, criminal, or hateful behavior is ignored as irrelevant by his friends and foes alike.
Impeachment has become the final proof. Despite the years-long torrent of horror from the White House, virtually everyone in DC seems to have convinced themselves that they're better off pretending Trump's primary offense is limited, well-defined, and less than five months old.
