Politics has never been a landscape of kind discourse. Policy disagreements quickly decline to ad hominem attacks on an individual holding an opposing view.
President Trump has uniformly used this tactic to demean anyone disagreeing with him, probably thousands of times since declaring his candidacy on June 16, 2015. When he was elected President, I hoped the enormity of the election and dignity of the office would inspire him to shift his behavior. Unfortunately, he remains truculent, not hesitating to dishonor the dignity of anyone caught in his diatribes.
The President of the United States retweeting a disrespectful caricature of the Senate Minority Leader and Speaker of the House was inconceivable until Donald Trump was elected. Now it’s normal.
Although the factionalism of our politics started long before Donald Trump’s ascendency, his standard of behavior has condoned further deterioration of the already rancorous relationship between the political parties. His impeachment provides perhaps the most stunning example, with Republications taking up a full-throated defense of his call to the President of Ukraine, then his recalcitrant attempts to block any investigation by the House of Representatives.
Donald Trump is proving his outrageous campaign claim that he can “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters” — apparently not any Republication votes in Congress.
