Indeed, it is no longer in the news, swept away after one or two days by the crazy, unconstitutional actions that come out daily - or maybe even hourly.We steadily succumbed to what I call “the banality of crazy,” in which the routine bombardment of unacceptable, disgusting, and frankly unhinged behavior simply became an accepted feature of the political landscape. By the end [of Trump's first term], the tweets were barely covered, the lunatic speeches ignored.
As Trump was launching his resurgence in the 2024 race, he floated the idea of shooting shoplifters without a trial and executing America’s top general. For several days, it barely registered, treated by the media as a forgettable, boring blip. These remarks were orders of magnitude more consequential than “covfefe,” but my phone never buzzed for them. It was a stark lesson: the news fixates on fresh narratives. Trump inciting political violence had become as humdrum and predictable as Democrats fumbling the response to it.
Today, the guardrails have become so flimsy that blatant corruption barely makes the news. On Friday night, Trump launched a meme coin—a digital token with no real-world value whatsoever—and abruptly increased his net worth by tens of billions of dollars.
Anyone in the world, whether foreign despots, criminals, or lobbyists hoping for a political favor, can now directly pay the president, a man who governs by loyalty tests and self-interested, transactional dealing. When I checked this morning, it was the tenth most prominent story on the New York Times website; by tomorrow, it will have mostly disappeared from view and discussion, even as it becomes a defining feature of his corrupt administration.
Brian Klaas
Continue reading.Our institutions are under threat; our norms have collapsed; and those who previously denounced Trump—from Mark Zuckerberg to the Village People—are now hoping to cash in on his return.
[...]
How might we best respond? How can we cope—and endure—his exhausting, depressing political resurgence for the next four years? And how should those of us who revile his politics resist the damage he promises to inflict on our political system, all in a smarter way than before?
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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