This is episode 130 of the Baehr and Curadh podcast. We are going to talk about cruelty.
Donald Trump can say and do things that basically no one else on the planet can get away with. Has Donald Trump forever desensitized America to cruelty? For reasons that will be analyzed for years to come, consequences seem to evade him at every turn. Trump has thoroughly desensitized voters to behavior that, in another era, they would have deemed disqualifying in a president. The national bar for outrage keeps rising. Our ability to be shocked has dwindled. We get bored reading about the man's many indiscretions. Trump's followers argue that his success is a symptom, not the cause, of the country's bad behavior. Voters continue to rebuke others who try to act similarly. Mark Robinson – a Trump-endorsed anti-gay politician who called himself a "Black Nazi" and a "perv" for pornography featuring transgender actors was soundly rejected by voters. Every time Trump crosses a new line, he makes it that much easier for the next guy to do the same. Americans have internalized the idea that expecting our political leaders to be good people is quaint and foolish. Is it possible to resensitize the electorate to scandal and cruelty? Some people today are too young to even remember Trump's first time running for president. They have grown up with the cruelty. We should start by trying to remember how we felt when all of this was still new.
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